ABSTRACT In response to perceptions that the People's Republic of China constitutes a hegemonic rival, both the United States Federal and individual U.S. state governments have enacted measures to defend against a myriad of alleged national security threats arising from the strategic competition. While Federal measures have garnered significant attention, a distinct and under-analysed phenomenon is the surge of individual U.S. states establishing measures designed to counter perceived threats to their citizens’ data, critical infrastructure, and economic well-being. However, the new state activism encroaches on policy-making that is often associated with national security and foreign affairs, which are considered ‘Federal territory’. In the past, state measures impacting foreign commerce and policy have raised the classic question of how to balance Federal power with individual state rights and have triggered ‘foreign affairs exceptionalism’ long understood as limiting state power when foreign affairs are involved. Prior litigation over state measures within the context of state overreach into foreign affairs generally focused on the dormant foreign commerce clause and preemption. State measures related to China present similar questions regarding potentially impermissible encroachment on foreign affairs. Yet traditional notions of foreign affairs exceptionalism are perhaps outdated given a rapidly changing international environment. The new geostrategic context and a dynamic re-conceptualization of national security (and state security) suggest that courts should re-examine the Constitutional battlegrounds in light of three unique factors: the expansion in conceptualizing security; China's unique political-economic governance model; and distinguishing between ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive’ deployments of state power.

ABSTRACT After 80 years of development, the Chicago Convention legal framework has created a uniform and resilient safety net for international air transport through its safety-oriented legal spirit and technical-based instruments. This framework builds public trust in air travel and facilitates the sustainable prosperity of the airline industry. Local aviation authorities, such as the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), proactively develop, update, and reform national aviation regulations to maintain a consistent safety level and ensure the stability and development of the air service trade both within and across borders. Airline workers, as key stakeholders in air transport, have received increased protection through this evolving legal framework. For example, the Safety Management System (SMS) and scientifically revised duty limitations for pilots have naturally diverged from those of general labour law, overriding the original mandates in local labour laws. Since these provisions are the byproducts of aviation law reform, the technical-centric approach to codification creates unique challenges when airline workers exercise their regular labour rights. This article reviews the last three years (2021.10–2024.10) of judicial decisions to explore the causes and impacts of this divergence in China’s aviation market – the world’s second largest – where scholars have noted an increasing gap between aviation and labour law. Our findings indicate that the divergence has significant impacts on airline workers, with the drawbacks of aviation law in labour matters outweighing its advantages. Despite making patches with supplementary instruments, China has seen limited improvement. This article proposes a standalone China’s aviation labour law to address loopholes and divergences.

ABSTRACT China's recent enactment of the Foreign State Immunity Law (FSIL) signalled its acceptance of restrictive immunity. In the FG Hemisphere Assocs. v the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the Congo case), it was confirmed that Hong Kong must align itself with the mainland's position on absolute immunity. After the implementation of the FSIL, Hong Kong will once again revert to the pre-handover position of restrictive immunity. The question that arises is whether the common law on restrictive immunity in Hong Kong's previous law can be revived as well. This article contends that the common law underwent two revivals, the first occurring at the time of Hong Kong's handover and the second after the implementation of the FSIL. After the FSIL, the common law will be revived at the abstract level and subject to review by the Hong Kong courts at the concrete level based on the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the Basic Law) and the FSIL. Meanwhile, it is also important to pay attention to the role and potential impact of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).

ABSTRACT Expropriation of the listed companies via loan guarantees was a key concern for the securities market in China. However, the actions taken by the authorities in recent years appear to be effective in curbing such misconduct. Following the self-enforcing governance norms proposed by Kraakman and Black, this article uses the misconduct of loan guarantees provided by listed companies in China as a case study to explore a feasible path for an effective regulatory framework to improve market integrity. It shows that China has developed a self-enforcing law model, featuring a collective liability mechanism to constrain various parties involved in such guarantees. This article argues that such a self-enforcing regulatory regime can push related parties involved to carry out their monitoring duties and curb the guarantee of misconduct provided by the listed companies.

ABSTRACT This study meticulously examines 122 international commercial mediation cases from China. Utilizing systematic content analysis, three pivotal elements that shape Chinese commercial mediation are identified: ‘Law’ is adaptive and hybrid; ‘Reason’ is multi-dimensional yet structured; ‘Interest’ is transformative and forward-looking. Rather than centreing on individual mediator discretion, our findings reveal that dispute resolution is driven by consistent structural interactions among these elements. We conceptualize this as the ‘elements-centered paradigm’—a practice-based analytical framework that captures how Law, Reason, and Interest are dynamically orchestrated in a manner akin to piecing together a tangram. This paradigm offers a compelling alternative to the prevailing mediator-centered paradigm by demonstrating that the Chinese approach not only safeguards the essence of justice but also enriches the mediation process through its communicative and integrative capabilities. This study suggests that this adaptable yet structured ‘Law-Reason-Interest’ framework holds significant potential to contribute valuable insights to global mediation practices. While grounded in the Chinese institutional context, this adaptable yet structured ‘Law–Reason–Interest’ framework aspires to serve as a universal analytical lens that contributes to broader theoretical dialogues and offers valuable insights for global mediation practices.

ABSTRACT The rise in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) evidence in criminal proceedings has created significant legal challenges; subsequently, the reliability of AI evidence has become an important issue in all jurisdictions. Various factors, such as errors, algorithmic bias, and algorithmic black boxes, influence the reliability of AI evidence. Moreover, AI evidence was not recognized as reliable at the beginning of its life cycle. The absence of AI evidence in Chinese law is problematic, even though AI evidence is considered a legal evidence category in practice. Through an empirical analysis, the type of legal evidence category that is preferred by Chinese judges and regarded as AI evidence in judicial proceedings is assessed. Subsequently, the problems that may arise from this practice are presented. The issue of privacy involved in AI evidence also poses a major challenge. In the contexts of enacting China’s Personal Information Protection Law (2021) and China’s first regulations targeting facial recognition (2025), this issue not only remains theoretical but also extends to the practical realm. Through comparative and normative analysis, this study puts forward feasible solutions for Chinese jurisdictions. These solutions include treating AI evidence as an independent evidence source, constructing a review mechanism for the reliability of AI evidence, and enhancing the protection of personal private information in AI systems. These propositions have important theoretical and practical significance in improving AI evidence rules in China.

ABSTRACT The launch of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area (‘GBA’) initiative has drawn attention to legal harmonization in the region. A close examination reveals that the GBA initiative aims to achieve only a modest form of legal harmonization to mitigate legal frictions that impede the area’s economic integration and development rather than increasing the similarity among legal rules in the three places. The GBA legal harmonization process so far has only involved coordinated actions while overlooked those uncoordinated mechanisms. This article includes a case study of the Macau Trust Law enacted in 2022. Although the Macau Trust Law is not a legislative project explicitly introduced under the GBA initiative, its drafting process, statutory provisions and potential implications provide crucial lessons for the GBA legal harmonization. The case study demonstrates that legal convergence is important for the area’s economic integration and future development even though it does not fall within the objectives of the current GBA policies. The GBA initiative should not neglect the role of legal transplant, which does not only enhance legal convergence but also drive mutual improvements and innovation of laws through legal divergence. The GBA’s unique ‘one country, two systems and three jurisdictions’ structure creates a legal laboratory in which iterative legal transplantation operates as a bottom-up mechanism of harmonization, markedly different from the top-down legal unification model exemplified by the European Union. In a tightly integrated region such as the GBA, ‘semi-coordinated’ lawmaking mechanisms – those lying between fully centralized and wholly spontaneous efforts – can be created to effectively promote legal harmonization.

ABSTRACT The architecture of legal capital rules is a subject of intense global debate, as jurisdictions worldwide strive to balance entrepreneurial flexibility with the need for creditor protection. This article offers critical insights into this discourse by analyzing China’s profound, decade-long experiment in capital regime reform from 2013 to 2023. Employing a theoretical framework that distinguishes between property-based (in rem) safeguards and contract-based (in personam) obligations, this study evaluates the consequences of replacing a mandatory, asset-focused system with one predicated on private ordering and shareholder autonomy. China’s 2013 transition to a predominantly contractualized system, which granted shareholders unprecedented latitude over their capital contributions, constituted a radical test of deregulation. The ensuing decade, however, revealed significant deficiencies, as the contractual model negated the core benefits of asset partitioning and introduced substantial risks of shareholder opportunism. The subsequent legislative recalibration in 2023, while addressing the most egregious abuses prompted by the 2013 reforms, has in turn produced a complex hybrid system that embodies unresolved theoretical tensions. Ultimately, China’s experience underscores the enduring importance of a non-waivable proprietary foundation for ensuring corporate integrity, as well as the necessity of a compatible institutional environment to sustain any legal framework.