First of all, the priorities for the Tang Code differ greatly from those of the American Justice

system. In order, the most grievous offenses presented in the excerpt from the Tang Code are: plotting rebellion, plotting great sedition, plotting treason, depravity, great irreverence, lack of filiality, and what is not right (SCT 549-551). Simplistically defined, the first capital offense to Tang China was what American law would describe as treason, a concept so foreign to everyday court proceedings in the modern era, but nonetheless an extremely important concern. This can be viewed as analogous to the modern Western fixation on national security, with the difference that modern concerns deal mainly with foreign threats as opposed to dangers from the citizenry. Great sedition, a