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During an important meeting held last week, President XI Jinping identified key challenges facing China such as “new changes” related to the “international situation” and emphasized the need to make domestic demand “the main driving force of economic development”. Various legal measures that China has introduced since May 2025 should help private enterprises—important contributors to China’s domestic economy—withstand these challenges. For example, in certain cases where private enterprises cannot pay counterparties compensation in accordance with court rulings, the courts are authorized to take flexible approaches to help these enterprises address their financial issues. Counterparties dealing with such enterprises should understand these approaches to better protect their own legal rights and interests.Read this article

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Since 2020, mainland China has stepped up its legal measures to better tackle the problem concerning fake safety certification documents. Understanding these efforts should reassure those handling a fire in Hong Kong, which killed at least 160 residents of a housing complex, that their commitment to pursue accountability without reservation is matched by a similar commitment on the part of the mainland Chinese authorities.Read this article

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The pioneering guidelines issued by an important arbitration commission in China regarding the use of AI in arbitration will test the commission’s ability to reassure all stakeholders that AI-facilitated arbitration can deliver efficient results without compromising accuracy, confidentiality, and fairness. The test is complicated by the potential for this commission to handle disputes arising from special types of “administrative agreements” signed by private parties and governments. The possibility of having governments participate in AI-facilitated arbitration presents difficult problems.Read this article

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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.Read this article

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China’s greenlight to allow American ownership of TikTok’s U.S. operations helps address concerns that Chinese ownership of this popular platform for short videos could put millions of U.S. users’ personal information at risk. This deal should alert Chinese leaders that other Chinese companies operating overseas could face similar challenges unless the country demonstrates its commitment to the protection of personal information. Two Guiding Cases recently issued by the Supreme People’s Court provide a glimpse of the judicial application of China’s rules on personal information. More importantly, these two de facto binding cases in China are just the beginning, as revealed by the highest court.Read this article

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Slightly more than a month after creating “K” visas for “foreign young scientific and technological talents”, China’s State Council released a new AI plan. The timing is not coincidental. It reflects gradual steps taken by China to mobilize foreign young talents to help advance the development of AI in the country and the Global South, which is of strategic importance to China.Read this article

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China’s revised Mineral Resources Law became effective on July 1, 2025, approximately eight months after the country’s legislature approved the adoption of a new regulatory system that recognizes the geopolitical significance of minerals and avoids irreversible damage to natural ecosystems. These and other regulatory changes will likely bring more domestic and foreign investment to Tibet to help solve a big puzzle: can Tibet better utilize its abundant mineral resources without compromising its natural beauty? If Tibet succeeds, the accomplishment will inspire China’s neighboring nations facing similar challenges and, as many in China hope, will also strengthen international cooperation in this area.Read this article

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The recent celebration of the 120th birthday of the late Chinese leader CHEN Yun, one of the most prominent early members of the Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”), has coincided with the occurrence of two medical scandals that have led to public outcry. The scandals have triggered widespread concerns about unqualified and unethical doctors and a medical system that seems to have allowed unfair practices. Were Chen Yun still alive, how would he handle this situation to restore public confidence?Read this article

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The need to mitigate risks associated with uncertainty in the international market has forced Chinese businesses to increasingly focus on their domestic market to reach 1.4 billion potential consumers. However, protectionist practices by various municipal, county-level, and other regional jurisdictions in China favoring local businesses have presented challenges to non-local businesses. To solve the problem, the Chinese national leadership has stepped up its effort to establish a “unified national market”. A six-month campaign recently launched by national authorities is expected to produce results that will also benefit foreign businesses seeking to overcome market access barriers in China.Read this article

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Linnaea Mallette, Spring Flowers Lightbulb Art
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A well-known Chinese business leader recently stated openly that her company does not hire any Chinese graduates or professionals returning from overseas to avoid potential infiltration by spies working for foreign entities. This remark has been widely criticized. While the business leader’s recruitment approach is quite extreme, her underlying concerns about potential loss of trade secrets are noteworthy. A new set of rules issued by Chinese authorities helps address these concerns by elucidating how individuals stealing trade secrets for foreign entities can be subject to severe criminal punishments.Read this article

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China stood out in the World Intellectual Property Organization’s latest report on generative artificial intelligence (“GenAI”) as, compared with other countries, China invented the largest number of GenAI technologies from 2014 to 2023. This momentum of innovation should be welcomed by Chinese leaders but should also prompt them to ponder a key question: how can they help to maintain and grow this momentum and ensure that China’s “new quality productive forces” will continue to drive the country’s long-term development? A case recently decided by the Supreme People’s Court shows that China is developing robust legal solutions to these challenges, among other tools.Read this article

Image: Gerd Altmann, Big Data (Publicdomainpictures.net)

Chinese President XI Jinping’s mid-February meeting with founders of China’s innovative companies showcases the country’s “new quality productive forces”—a term coined by the president in 2023 to emphasize the role of innovation in driving the country’s long-term development. Despite the apparent collaboration prevailing in the meeting room, behind the scenes there is fierce competition among these and other innovative companies on many fronts, including the use of data, a valuable property in the era of artificial intelligence. China is acutely aware of the need to regulate the use of data, but the challenge is how to do so properly. Incremental steps taken by the judiciary and the executive in China provide a glimpse of the country’s exploratory approach to such regulation.Read this article

Images: Andrea Stöckel, Vintage Art Music Cats;
Karen Arnold, Do Not Copy Stamp (Publicdomainpictures.net)

An appellate court in Beijing just delivered a victory to a Belgian artist in a five-year-long legal battle, upholding an earlier ruling of the Beijing Intellectual Property Court that his paintings have been plagiarized for years by a Chinese artist. A key step towards this victory was the Belgian artist’s success in keeping the case in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court. Artists around the world seeking to protect their copyrights should understand both the positive actions this court took in this case and the confusion that remains as a result of the court’s decision, as well as why they should leverage platforms such as Rednote to avoid ordeals like the one experienced by the Belgian artist.Read this article

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The coming into effect of China’s Foreign State Immunity Law at the beginning of 2024 has sparked concerns about how the Chinese judiciary will subject foreign states to the Chinese legal system because the law represents China’s transition from affording foreign states “absolute immunity” in Chinese courts to restricting the immunity to certain types of lawsuits. Amidst these concerns, the Supreme People’s Court just released a Guiding Case to illustrate its new, proactive approach to recognizing and enforcing foreign judgments. This approach not only evokes more optimism about the Chinese judiciary, but also increases the capacity of Chinese courts to help China revive its economy in 2025 and beyond by increasing the confidence of foreign parties in China’s willingness to recognize and enforce foreign judgments.Read this article