BAILMENT WITHOUT CATEGORIES: QING LEGAL NORMS, CHINESE DIASPORA FINANCE, AND THE COLONIAL RECONSTITUTION OF PRIVATE LAW IN MALAYA (C. 1820–1920)

Abstract

This article examines how Qing legal norms governing entrustment shaped Chinese commercial practices in Malaya, and how British colonial courts subsequently re-characterised those practices within the framework of English private law. Under the Great Qing Legal Code, disputes over entrusted property were not organised through an abstract law of obligations but evaluated in terms of misuse, trust, and social order. These norms travelled with Chinese migrants and structured remittance, deposit, and partnership practices within diaspora networks. Colonial courts, however, translated these relationships into the categories of debt, bailment, and trust, typically classifying them as debtor–creditor relationships where funds were mixed or used. This article argues that this process did not merely clarify legal relations but transformed their normative character, with significant distributive consequences. The encounter reveals a deeper tension between relational and categorical legal orders and challenges assumptions about the universality of private law reasoning. The shift might also be said to have changed the Chinese diasporic subconsciousness of that which is important in commercial relationships.