The rule of law is often invoked without specifying which rule-of-law properties are meant. The concept has at least four distinct components:

1. **Generality**: laws apply to everyone, including rulers
2. **Publicity**: laws are known in advance
3. **Prospectivity**: laws don't apply retroactively
4. **Stability**: laws don't change arbitrarily

A legal system can have some of these and lack others. China has a relatively stable, publicly known legal code that doesn't bind the Party elite — it lacks generality. Retroactive legislation is common in emergency contexts.

These are independent properties. Conflating them obscures which element is actually missing in any given case.