Law Commons^™

Beyond Ownership: State Capitalism And The Chinese Firm, Curtis J. Milhaupt, Wentong Zheng

Wentong Zheng

Chinese state capitalism has been treated as essentially synonymous with state-owned enterprises (SOEs). But drawing a stark distinction between SOEs and privately owned enterprises (POEs) misperceives the reality of China’s institutional environment and its impact on the formation and operation of large enterprises of all types. We challenge the “ownership bias” of prevailing analyses of Chinese firms by exploring the blurred boundary between SOEs and POEs in China. We argue that the Chinese state has less control over SOEs and more control over POEs than its ownership interest in the firms suggests. Our analysis indicates that Chinese state capitalism can …

The Dumping Dragon: Analysing China's Evolving Anti-Dumping Behaviour, Umair H. Ghori

Umair H. Ghori

China is a major target for anti-dumping measures by both developed and developing countries. Its rapid industrial transition to higher value-added sectors brings it in direct conflict with the US and the EU. Anti-dumping measures have consistently been employed by the US and the EU to protect their domestic markets from encroaching Chinese exports. In the initial few years of joining the WTO, China rarely initiated any complaint in the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM), while facing several complaints itself. This approach has now evolved. China appears to have acquired the knowledge and capacity to access the WTO DSM for …

From Pirates To Partners (Episode Ii): Protecting Intellectual Property In Post-Wto China, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

In From Pirates to Partners: Protecting Intellectual Property in China in the Twenty-First Century, I criticized the ineffectiveness and short-sightedness of the U.S.-China intellectual property policy. As I argued, the approach taken by the administration in the 1980s and early 1990s had created a cycle of futility in which China and the United States repeatedly threatened each other with trade wars only to back down in the eleventh hour with a compromise that did not provide sustainable improvements in intellectual property protection. Since I wrote that article five years ago, China has joined the WTO and undertook a complete overhaul …

Succession By Estoppel: Hong Kong's Succession To The Iccpr, Peter K. Yu

Peter K. Yu

No abstract provided.

Avenues To Foreign Investment In China’S Shipping Industry—Have Lease Financing Arrangements And The Free Trade Zones Opened Markets For Foreign Non-Bank Investment?, Rick Beaumont

Rick Beaumont

No abstract provided.

Avenues To Foreign Investment In China’S Shipping Industry—Have Lease Financing Arrangements And The Free Trade Zones Opened Markets For Foreign Non-Bank Investment?, Rick Beaumont

Rick Beaumont

No abstract provided.

The World’S Laboratory: China’S Patent Boom, It Standards And The Implications For The Global Knowledge, Christopher Mcelwain, Dennis Fernandez

Christopher McElwain

Just as China’s factories disrupted the economics of IT hardware, its research labs have the potential to disrupt the economics of the technology itself. In 2014, China’s patent office received nearly 2.4 million patent applications, 93% from domestic applicants. China has also climbed to third place in terms of international applications, with over 21,000 WIPO PCT applications. Meanwhile, China has taken an assertive role in setting technology standards, both at the national and international levels. In the past, this has included developing and promoting alternatives to important IT standards as a means of challenging perceived monopolies by certain (foreign-dominated) technologies. …

The Proposed Inheritance Tax And Its Impact On China's Economy, Michael Steve

Michael Steve

No abstract provided.

China's Maritime Strategic Agenda, Christopher Rahman

Chris Rahman

Just what’s China up to at sea? To casual observers, including a burgeoning legion of journalists, commentators and bloggers, China seems set on a path to becoming a major force on the world’s oceans, developing bluewater naval power with which to protect the Chinese state’s expanding economic ties to far-flung corners of the world and project political and even strategic influence. Such observers rightly note the rapid growth in China’s international seaborne trade, its shipping and shipbuilding sectors, and its marine economy and maritime interests in general. China’s naval developments over the past decade have been widely commented on, especially …

Book Review Of Oil On Water: Tankers, Pirates And The Rise Of China, Christopher Rahman

Chris Rahman

Oil on Water sheds light on the vital economic and strategic issue of the international oil trade. Oil remains the most important of all fuels, and the viability of the oil trade is highly dependent upon the safety and security of shipping. However, while the idea of ‘energy security’ is a term widely employed and appreciated in the abstract, the actual details of how the world’s economies are supplied are not well understood. The issue has gained much greater salience in recent years due to structural upward changes in oil prices, mostly as a result of rapidly growing demand in …

Ballistic Missiles In China's Anti-Taiwan Blockade Strategy, Christopher Rahman

Chris Rahman

No abstract provided.

Legal Pragmatism In The People's Republic Of China, Xingzhong Yu

Xingzhong Yu

No abstract provided.

The European Constitution And Its Implications For China, Xingzhong Yu

Xingzhong Yu

The European Constitution is significant not only for the European Union, but also for a developing constitutional system like that of China. The EU constitutional practice may have positive implications on China's constitutional theory and practice. In the wake of the European constitutional achievement, Chinese constitutional scholars need to re-examine their long-held conviction in the indispensable role of the state in constitutional formation and imagination. The EU experience may have provided China with valuable insights and ways to deal with its inherited ethnic problems and improve its institutions on regional autonomy for ethnic minorities. China's own constitutional experiment in Hong …

What Determines M&A Legal And Financial Advisors' Competitiveness In An International Financial Centre: Using China's Going Out Policy As A Natural Experiment, Bryane Michael

Bryane Michael (bryane.michael@stcatz.ox.ac.uk)

How can legal and financial advisors compete in the global market for M&A mandates? In this presentation, we review the arguments made in our paper.

Avenues To Foreign Investment In China’S Shipping Industry—Have Lease Financing Arrangements And The Free Trade Zones Opened Markets For Foreign Non-Bank Investment?, Rick Beaumont

Rick Beaumont

No abstract provided.

Virtue Ethics, Rule Of Law, And Self-Restriction, Stephen C. Angle

Stephen C. Angle

China's Competition Policy Reforms: The Anti-Monopoly Law And Beyond, Bruce M. Owen, Su Sun, Wentong Zheng

Wentong Zheng

In August 2007, China adopted the Antimonopoly Law, its first comprehensive antitrust legislation, thirteen years after the drafting of the law began. Such a protracted legislative process is highly unusual in China, and can only be explained by the controversies the law presents. This paper discusses the fundamental issues in China’s economy that give rise to the challenges China faced in the drafting and adoption of the Antimonopoly Law. Those fundamental issues include the role of state-owned enterprises, perceived excessive competition, mergers and acquisitions by foreign companies, administrative monopolies, and the enforcement of the Antimonopoly Law. How China will enforce …

Transplanting Antitrust In China: Economic Transition, Market Structure, And State Control, Wentong Zheng

Wentong Zheng

This Article examines the compatibility of Western antitrust models as incorporated in China's first comprehensive antitrust law – the Antimonopoly Law ("AML") – with China's local conditions. It identifies three forces that shape competition law and policy in China: China's current transitional stage, China's market structures, and pervasive state control in China's economy. This Article discusses how these forces have limited the applicability of Western antitrust models to China in three major areas of antitrust: cartels, abuse of dominant market position, and merger review. Specifically, it details how these forces have prevented China from pursuing a rigorous anti-cartel policy, how …

Counting Once, Counting Twice: The Precarious State Of Subsidy Regulation, Wentong Zheng

Wentong Zheng

Subsidy regulation is in a precarious state. While it has been so ever since the conception of the current subsidy regulation regime, the recent disputes between the United States and China over the “double counting” or “double remedies” of subsidies have threatened the mere functionality of the current regime. This Article argues that the double counting controversy reveals the self-contradictions of the current subsidy regulation regime as to the fundamental question of why subsidies need to be regulated. These self-contradictions make it impossible to devise a coherent solution to the double counting problem within the framework of the current subsidy …

Analysis Of Legal Hurdles To Issuing Catastrophe Bonds In China, Tao (Tim) Liang

Tao LIANG

Anti-Corruption Commissions In China:Panacea Or Cure-All Medicine To Fight Corruption, Chan Louis

Chan Louis

With the rapidly economic development and the overall social transformation, corruption has becoming a more prominent threat to China's long-term development. The CPC and Chinese government, while severely cracking down corruption, has proposed a series of strategic thinking to fundamentally solve the problem of corruption. The sharp weapons against corruption in China are generally two institutions, which are Commission for Discipline Inspection responsible for the inspection within the party and the People's Procuratorate, one of key functions of which is prevention and punishment of corruption. A popular saying among Chinese government officials goes: “Fear not the heavens or the earth, …

Constitutional Interpretation In Law-Making: China’S Invisible Constitutional Enforcement Mechanism, Tom Ginsburg, Yan Lin

Tom Ginsburg

Abstract: It is conventional wisdom that China’s Constitution is unenforceable, and plays little role in China’s legal system, other than as a symbolic document. This view rests on the fact that the Supreme Court has no power to interpret the Constitution. The formal body with interpretive power, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, has never issued an official interpretation. Despite this apparent lack of enforcement, we argue that China’s Constitution indeed plays an increasingly important role within the party-state. It does through not through the courts but through the legislative process, in which formal requirements of constitutional review …

The Paper Tiger Gets Teeth: Developments In Chinese Environmental Law, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

This very short essay reports on the 2014 amendments to China’s Environmental Protection Law, following a series of internationally reported air and water pollution crises leading to unprecedented public protests. The changes promise more meaningful oversight of industrial pollution and harsher penalties for violations, targeting not only polluters but officials who fail to enforce applicable regulations against them. The amendments also empower certain non-governmental organizations to bring environmental litigation on behalf of the public. Official news accounts openly acknowledge the government’s hope that increased public access to legal redress will reduce the growing trend of mass environmental protests. These are …

Expert Seminar The Employment Relationship Beyond Eu And Across National Borders - Challenges And Responses Tuesday 11 March 2014, 09.15-16.00, Michele Faioli

Michele Faioli

No abstract provided.

China's Regulatory Framework For Outward Foreign Direct Investment, Karl P. Sauvant, Victor Zitian Chen

Karl P. Sauvant

Chinese Courts' Role In Financial Reform: On The First "Vam Agreement" Case In China, Siyi Huang

Siyi Huang

Traditional belief is that courts in authoritarian regimes are only passive institutions and their authority and influence are extremely limited. Despite the conventional wisdom, it’s been noticed that Chinese courts have played a crucial role in China’s financial reform. Drawing on insights from the judgments of three Chinese courts at different levels on the first “value adjustment mechanism” case in China, this article attempts to explore the functional techniques and decision-making process of Chinese courts. The analysis of the court’ judgments suggests that Chinese courts have performed a policy-making function in deciding controversial economic cases, by transcending social and business …

More Market-Oriented Than U.S. And More Socialist Than China: A Comparative Public Property Story Of Singapore, Jianlin Chen, Jiongzhe Cui

Jianlin Chen

Compared to the more illustrious conceptualization of private property, the conceptualiza-tion of public property remains at a surprisingly infantile stage. The very definition of public property is ambiguous. This article utilizes a comparative case study of traffic congestion policies in the United States, China, and Singapore to highlight the conceptual pitfalls posed by the current confusion on public property. This article proposes a refined public property framework that offers greater conceptual clarity on the real issues at stake. In particular, this article argues that “property” in public property should include regulatory permits while “public” in public property should not be …

The Elaborate Paper Tiger: Environmental Enforcement And The Rule Of Law In China, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

The Wages Of Belonging: Rare Earths From China, And The Return Of Gatt À La Carte, Chin Leng Lim, J. H. Senduk

Chin Leng Lim

China has lost the Rare Earths case before a Panel which, however, split 2:1 on whether the Chinese Accession Protocol's general ban on export duties would allow General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article XX to be invoked. The question affects whether other Recently Acceded Members' (RAMs') WTO-plus terms of accession should generally be read together with the GATT. Export quotas are unproblematic because Article XI is contained in the GATT. China's quota-based conservation measures were however strictly scrutinized, raising other questions about the room RAMs have to invoke Article XX if they might have to depend upon highly …

China's Agricultural Insurance Is Catching Up, Tao (Tim) Liang

Tao LIANG