| Although called by different names, theft has always been an important crime in ancient and modern criminal laws. In modern times, people are accustomed to understanding the crime of theft (dao 盗) in traditional Chinese law as property crime. However, when the Chinese characters were invented, the word "dao" generally meant "unjust" or "wrong". It was not until the Warring State Period that dao became a word more clearly referring to an act of property infringement, but even then its meaning of "unjust" or "wrong" didn't completely disappear. This diversity of the ordinary meaning of dao influenced the design of the crime of theft in the laws from Qin in the Warring State Period to the Han Dynasty. As a result, there was a certain degree of complexity in the meaning of dao. On one hand, it mainly referred the illegal acquisition of property, while on the other hand, it retained the possibility of transcending the conception of property crime. In the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, although legislators tried to differentiate or purify the crime of theft, the ordinary meaning of the word "dao" still had multiple levels, and the complexity of the meaning of the crime of theft as a legal term could not be completely changed and ultimately preserved in the laws of the Tang Dynasty. |
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