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Image: George Hodan, Egg and Hammer (Publicdomainpictures.net)

China’s administrative litigation system came into effect in 1990 amidst strong demand for more protection of the legal rights and interests of citizens and private enterprises by enabling them to seek courts’ assistance in reviewing the legality of officials’ decisions. According to China’s Supreme People’s Court, this system has experienced challenges but shown progress over the past ten years. However, more information about a key aspect of the system should be disclosed to strengthen the role of Chinese courts and to align with the goals of a new law.

Image: Petr Kratochvil, Vintage Laboratory (Publicdomainpictures.net)

Shortly before the announcement of the winners of the 2025 Nobel prizes, an official newspaper of China published an article highlighting mismanagement of research funds and other problems inside Chinese research institutions. If left unaddressed, these problems will likely continue to limit China’s success in achieving scientific breakthroughs that are recognized by Nobel prizes. As these problems may also adversely affect China’s mission to build “new quality productive forces”, remedial measures are being rolled out to ensure that great scientific minds are fully utilized in the country.

Image: Mohamed Mahmoud Hassan, Installment, Car, Bank, Percentage (Publicomainpictures.net)

Judicial protection of intellectual property (“IP”) rights in China has been perceived to be limited because, among other problems, the amounts of damages awarded by Chinese courts in IP infringement cases have historically been small. However, this state of affairs may be changing, as China’s Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) rendered a landmark judgment in a case involving large-scale infringement of trade secrets, allowing the victims to receive an amount equivalent to almost USD 90 million as compensation. As analyzed by Nathan Harpainter and David Zhao, Co-Managing Editors of SINOTALKS®, the innovative approach taken by the SPC to calculate the damages in the landmark case is essentially based on the concept of “unjust enrichment”. The steps followed by the SPC to do the calculation are helpful but inadequate. To help China develop its jurisprudence in this important area, the two co-authors discuss related U.S. experiences.

Image: Petr Kratochvil, American Flag And City Buildings (Publicdomainpictures.net)

On March 6, 2025, Dr. Mei Gechlik, Founder & CEO of SINOTALKS® gave a talk about China’s Guiding Cases and related topics to a group of attorneys at the U.S. Department of Commerce to deepen their understanding of China’s court system and latest developments.