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From the diverse perspectives in and insights into the studies of the legal history in China, Chen focuses mainly on how royal powers consolidate its political power through its ways of ruling to maintain social order. Chen’s book covers the crime issues and the legal systems of this world and the judgment in hell of the unknown world to discuss the aspects of the legal systems in the Tang dynasty. His main concerns include investigating the actual practice of the litigation system in the Tang dynasty, the corresponding practices and social security demonstrated through individual criminal cases, and the ways in which religions and beliefs are mobilized to decrease criminal rate and to gain social control during the process of law making on a national level.

All lives end at one time or another, while the wheel of history rolls on. The entanglement between history and life reminds people of such a universal topic. According to Eric Hobsbawm, if the proposition of “he should wear clothes” is hidden behind The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen, there should be a certain knowledge that human should possess as self-evident as the emperor should wear clothes. Eric Hobsbawm believes that knowledge should be history. He believes that even laymen could tell that social science and history studies both need history to explain how modern world and social system are formed. It also allows us to conduct all kinds of social studies more analytically. He emphasizes that “all peoples have a history.” The value of “history” is no limited to the “function” under pragmatism or power struggles. The purpose and function of history is providing more information for the human pursuit of love, hope, and peace. Only with this purpose would the function of history be maximized.

Chen has also been interested in the ways in which states rule in ancient China. That led him to publish Hell, Law, and World Order—the Religions, Society, and States in Ancient China in 2009 to investigate the relationships among religions, society, and states in ancient China. In recent years Chen has been studying the “judging” in the Tang dynasty and has published several academic papers on the “Hundred Ways of Judging” by Bai Juyi