Complaint systems have existed in China for many years, and in 2004, a debate took place in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over the Letters and Visits System (xinfang zhidu), which was designed to allow people to register complaints with the upper levels of the government. However, both parties generally overlooked several different complaint systems that had preceded the Letters and Visits System during China’s history. Indeed, despite the rich heritage of numerous complaint systems throughout China’s past, most studies of complaint systems in China have paid little attention to...