Chinese Law Prof Blog

Teng Biao and other lawyers offer assistance to Tibetan detainees

Fresh from his kidnapping by the police, Teng Biao has now joined an effort to offer legal assistance to Tibetans detained in the recent unrest. Here is the open letter in which he and several other signatories offer assistance. Teng is a brave man; the rabid nationalists - and there sure seem to be a lot of them - may be less polite to him than the police were.

My very last post on Tang Wei

There is now a petition circulating in China addressed to Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao asking that the government withdraw the ban. Here's an English translation; here's the Chinese original. Interestingly, some of the language tracks that of the report in the Procuratorial Daily that I translated here a few days ago.

Visiting (or trying to visit) Zeng Jinyan at Bobo Freedom City

Here's a video of Time reporters Simon Elegant and Austin Ramzy trying to visit Hu Jia's wife Zeng Jingyan at her apartment at the ironically named Bobo Freedom City apartment complex. Zeng is under what amounts to house arrest, although as far as I know no legal justification has been offered. Here's a video shot by Hu Jia earlier of their life under house arrest. And here's the story of an attempt to bring milk powder to Zeng Jinyan and her baby. Fascinating stuff.

WTO panel issues final ruling against China in auto parts case

Last month I posted about the WTO's interim ruling; the final ruling has now been issued (but won't be public until July). Those who have access to the BNA's WTO Reporter can see a full report here. Here are the first few paragraphs, the quoting of which will not, I hope, exceed the bounds of fair use:

A World Trade Organization dispute panel has issued a final ruling upholding complaints filed by the United States, the European Union and Canada against China's discriminatory tariff treatment of imported automobile parts.

The final ruling circulated to the four parties March 20 maintains the findings in the panel's interim report issued Feb. 13, according to officials familiar with the ruling (30 WTO, 02/14/08).

The panel rejected China's arguments in defense of regulations that the United States, the EU, and Canada said resulted in illegal duties being imposed on imported auto parts.

Officials said China contested only one part of the panel's findings during the review of the interim report, namely that Beijing's decision to subject imports of completely knocked-down (CKD) and semi knocked-down (SKD) auto kits to the same 25 percent tariff as complete motor vehicles violated China's WTO accession commitments. The panel rejected China's claims in the final ruling, the officials said.

The final ruling is due to be issued to all WTO members and made public sometime in July.

US and EU initiate WTO complaint against China for financial information restrictions

I noted this dispute in an earlier post last January. Here's the latest story on the official request for consultations filed on March 3rd.

US to initiate WTO dispute proceedings with China over financial information rules

The BNA's WTO Reporter reports as follows (excerpt only; full story here):

The United States has signaled it will initiate new World Trade Organization dispute settlement proceedings against China to address a standing U.S. complaint regarding Chinese restrictions on foreign financial information service providers.

Officials speaking on condition of anonymity said a letter was sent by the United States to China Jan. 25 warning that U.S. patience on the issue has finally run out. As a result, barring quick action by Beijing, Washington is expected to initiate proceedings by requesting WTO dispute consultations with China.

At issue is a September 2006 administrative measure issued by China's state-owned Xinhua News Agency prohibiting foreign financial information services such as Bloomberg or Reuters from selling their services directly to Chinese domestic clients. Instead, the measure requires the foreign news services to operate through an agent designated by Xinhua.

To date, the only agent designated by Xinhua is a Xinhua affiliate.

For a great story of an earlier attempt by Xinhua to control (and profit from) the information flow from foreign providers, see James McGregor, One Billion Customers (2007), pp. 129 ff.

Chinese Law Prof Blog passes 100,000 mark

Yes, yes, I know - some other blogs get about that many hits per day. But It's not too bad for our little corner of academia. My potentially unfair advantage - a Chinese audience - has unfortunately been nullified by the Chinese government's blocking of this site.

EPA - China Environmental Law Initiative Web site

Here's the first paragraph of the EPA's press release:

In an effort to strengthen the legal framework for environmental protection in China, EPA today launched the EPA - China Environmental Law Initiative Web site. The Web site, announced by EPA General Counsel Roger R. Martella, will provide a forum for sharing information and fostering an ongoing dialogue with China on environmental law.

Full text here.

The Web site itself is here; portions have been translated into Chinese and are available here.

Shi Tao et al. suit against Yahoo settles

Here's the CNN report. The amount was undisclosed.

Yang and Callahan testimony in Congressional hearing

Last week I posted here about the hearings before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs regarding Yahoo's role in the prosecution of Shi Tao. Here are some more useful links:

• Jerry Yang's testimony (not much of substance)
• Michael Callahan's testimony (much more interesting)
• Webcast link (be sure to have RealPlayer configured to run SMI files)

Callahan's testimony reveals that he learned in October 2006 that his earlier testimony to Congress - to the effect that Yahoo had not known the nature of the investigation of Shi Tao - was inaccurate. He apologizes for not informing the Committee of this.

A puzzle remains in that Callahan, speaking for Yahoo (the US parent), continues to insist that the request for information was received by Yahoo China, and that the information in question was provided by them. Thus, the issue as framed by Yahoo is whether a Chinese company can be expected to resist Chinese government orders. The documents uncovered in litigation and posted on the Duihua Foundation's web site, however, seem to show that the request was to Yahoo Hong Kong (specifically, its representative office in Beijing), and that it was Yahoo Hong Kong that provided the information. (For more on this, with relevant links, see my previous post here.) The House Foreign Affairs Committee has focused solely on whether Yahoo knew of the nature of the investigation of Shi Tao, and seems to have overlooked this other problem.

Yahoo executives grilled by House Foreign Affairs Committee

The House Foreign Affairs Committee held hearings today on Yahoo's role in the prosecution of Shi Tao, a topic on which I've blogged before (most recently, here). Testifying before the Committee were Jerry Yang and general counsel Michael Callahan. Specifically relevant to this hearing, Chairman Tom Lantos has accused Yahoo of providing false information to Congress in earlier testimony by Michael Callahan (see Lantos' statement here). According to a Yahoo-sympathetic report of the proceedings by CNET's correspondent, Yahoo admits that the information Callahan provided - that Yahoo did not know of the nature of the investigation - was inaccurate: as Lantos' statement points out, "[T]he document provided to Yahoo! China on April 22, 2004 by the Beijing State Security Bureau stated, 'Your office is in possession of the following items relating to a case of suspected illegal provision of state secrets to foreign entities…'" Lantos is not prepared to say that Callahan in fact knew this and was actually committing perjury, but expresses astonishment that a translation of this key document was never provided to Callahan as he prepared for his earlier testimony. Lantos also states:

Six months after his testimony, Mr. Callahan became aware that some officials of Yahoo! did know the nature of the investigation against Shi Tao at the time it complied with the Chinese request for information. Despite Mr. Callahan’s explicit recognition that his previous testimony was inconsistent with the facts, neither Mr. Callahan nor anybody at Yahoo contacted the Committee, orally or in writing, to advise us that Yahoo had provided false information to the Committee.

I don't yet have a transcript of the hearing, so I don't what Yang and Callahan had to say in response to this; much of the time seems to have been spent in statements by Committee members.

If I may be forgiven for quoting myself, I think an important issue is being overlooked:

Once again, it seems, the complex structure of Yahoo's East Asian operations is confusing people and diverting attention from an important issue. Forget about the debatable issue of how much information the search warrant really provided. What the CFA's press release does not notice, and what the Yahoo spokesman does not deny, is that the documents (again, if genuine) appear to refute conclusively Yahoo's explicit contention, made elsewhere in general counsel Callahan's testimony, that the Yahoo entity named Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong), Ltd. (Yahoo HK) had nothing to do with any of this, and that the information demand was made to (and the information supplied by) Yahoo's Chinese-incorporated entity. The documents show that the demands were addressed in one case to Yahoo HK's Beijing representative office, and in another case simply to Yahoo HK generally. They also show that in at least one case, information was supplied by Yahoo HK (or at least the document has a Yahoo HK stamp on it).

This is more than just a technical issue. If Yahoo HK released the information, it may have violated Hong Kong privacy laws. And as I argued in my post yesterday, Yahoo HK is really in no different position vis-a-vis the PRC authorities than the US parent, where many people (including me) have e-mail accounts.

There are important issues involved here; among other things, in some cases simply doing business in China involves some distasteful choices. Are we really prepared to say that US companies should simply stop doing any business in China? That seems a bit extreme; I think reasonable people of good conscience could reach a different conclusion, and it's never been my intention in my posts on this topic to engage in intemperate Yahoo-bashing. At the same time, it's impossible even to discuss these issues intelligently if the factual background of who knew what when is not well understood.

Department of Commerce seeks comments on granting market-economy treatment to certain Chinese respondents in antidumping suits

On October 25, the US Department of Commerce issued a notice requesting public comment on

whether it should consider granting market-economy treatment to individual respondents in antidumping proceedings involving the People's Republic of China ("China"), the conditions under which individual firms should be granted market-economy treatment, and how such treatment might affect our antidumping calculation for such qualifying respondents.

This is a very interesting development. As trade buffs know, Commerce has long declined as a matter of policy to apply countervailing duties to non-market economies on the grounds that the amount of a countervailable subsidy in such an economy is impossible to determine. (Trade buffs may also think I'm oversimplifying here; sorry!) Recently, however, Commerce did find that Chinese exports had received a countervailable subsidy. (See Countervailing Duty Investigation of Coated Free Sheet ("CFS") Paper from the People's Republic of China - Whether the Analytical Elements of the Georgetown Steel Opinion are Applicable to China's Present-day Economy (March 29, 2007) (on file in the CRU on the record of case number C-570-907); Coated Free Sheet Paper from the People's Republic of China: Amended Preliminary
Affirmative Countervailing Duty Determination, 72 FR 17484 (April 9, 2007).) This position is less a reversal of previous policy than a recognition that China's economy is sufficiently market-governed in at least some areas to warrant revisiting the policy's application to China.

This new thinking has now gone the logical next step, toward consideration of the possibility that some elements of China's economy are sufficiently market-governed that they should not be subject to NME treatment in antidumping proceedings. Since NME treatment is, for respondents, essentially the equivalent of losing before the contest has begun, that Commerce will consider this possibility is good news for Chinese exporters and American importers.

Product-liability lawyer's dream: gasoline-powered roller blades from China

You saw it here first. Well, at least it comes with a warning: "Oldster, child gingerly to use."

Thanks to ASY for the tip.

Yale Law School's China Law Center snags $10M Hewlett Foundation grant

The title of this post says it all; congratulations to China Law Center director Paul Gewirtz. For more information, see the press release.

June 4th irony

So successful has the government been at eradicating any memory of June 4th that someone was able to slip a small ad into the Chengdu Evening News (成都晚报) saying, "A salute to the strong mothers of the victims of June 4th" (向坚强的64遇难者母亲致敬!). (It's quite inconspicuous; click on the thumbnail for a full-size photo and look for it on the right hand side, about two thirds of the way down.) Apparently the person who took the ad didn't know the significance of "64"; the person who placed it apparently said it was connected with some mine disaster.

The deputy editor of the Chengdu Evening News and two others have been reported fired. Here's a South China Morning Post article (registration required) on the affair.

Green revolt in Xiamen

Residents of Xiamen last month demonstrated against the construction of a chemical plant; on May 30th, the "temporary suspension" of the project was announced. For a news story with links to two Youtube videos of the demonstrations, click here.

The Economist on US-China economic relations

This post is not, strictly speaking (or even broadly speaking), law-related. But it bears on important issues in US-China relations on which there is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding, even at the highest levels of policymaking. Here's an excellent article from the Economist pointing out that the current RMB-dollar exchange rate does not hurt the US, and that US unemployment - at close to its lowest rate in decades - is hardly a problem, let alone one for which China can be blamed. None of what article says is news, but it's a kind of knowledge that simply does not penetrate in some quarters. (Thanks to China Law Blog for the pointer.)

While I'm at it, may I make an undoubtedless useless plea for people to stop talking about the trade "imbalance"? Imbalance is a value-laden word that is impossible to think of as other than bad. The word "balance" in trade discourse means the same thing as "balance" in your bank statement: it just means "remaining amount" or "difference". A surplus or deficit between two countries is no more "imbalanced" than having a bank balance of $100,000 is "imbalanced". Using the word "imbalance" to describe a deficit or surplus implies that the ideal and proper state of trade between any two countries is always no surplus, no deficit. This is utter nonsense. What we really need is a whole new set of terms for talking about trade, so that we can get rid of value-laden and therefore misleading terms such as "balance," "surplus," and "deficit."

Scholarship on Chinese law cited in US Supreme Court opinion

Yes, it has really happened. In footnote 2 of his dissent in United Haulers Assn., Inc. v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority (April 30, 2007), Justice Alito cites Owen, Sun, & Zheng, Antitrust in China: The Problem of Incentive Compatibility, 1 J. of Competition L. & Econ. 123 (2005) and Qin, WTO Regulation of Subsidies to State-owned Enterprises (SOEs): A Critical Appraisal of the China Accession Protocol, 7 J. of Int'l Econ. L. 863 (Dec. 2004). Qin is the only law professor in the group - she's at Wayne State.

Chinese political prisoner and wife sue Yahoo! in US federal court

The April 18th issue of the New York Times carries a report that begins as follows:

A Chinese political prisoner and his wife sued Yahoo in federal court Wednesday, accusing the company of abetting the commission of torture by helping Chinese authorities identify political dissidents who were later beaten and imprisoned.

The suit, filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act, is believed to be the first of its kind against an Internet company for its activities in China.

For an in-depth discussion, with links to the complaint and to other relevant English and Chinese documents, check out Rebecca MacKinnon's blog posting.

NGOs in China

Today's New York Times carries an interesting article on the growth of NGOs (real NGOs, not organizations like the Women's Federation) in China.

I guess it was only a matter of time ...

... before someone came out with a Chen Guangcheng T-shirt; available here on e-Bay.

Volunteers wanted at China Regional Jessup Moot Court Competition, Shenzhen, Feb. 6-9

Thanks to Carol Kalinoski for this notice:

The Fifth China Regional Jessup Moot Court Competition will be held next week at Shenzhen University, School of Law, on February 6-9, 2007.

The Jessup 2007 problem focuses on the increasing role of intergovernmental organizatons (IGOs), such as the European Union, in international political and economic affairs.  Despite the growth of IGOs, the traditional state-centered role of international law relegates these entities to a subsidiary role.  For example, only "states" are permitted to appear before the International Court of Justice (ICJ),.  Even though such IGOs may have rights under a treaty, they have no recourse to the ICJ.

In this year's Jessup moot court problem, a state seeks to join an IGO created by five other member states.  The controversies arise when the applicant state is thought by the IGO to have "failed" to comply with an condition of the written accession agreement.  Questions to be answered before the ICJ are whether the IGO violated international law by denying the applicant state membership in the IGO?  Also to be considered are questions of treaty law, privileges and immunities of diplomatic missions, diplomatic protection, and the law of expropriation.

There are expected to be 26 Chinese law schools participating in this year's moot, with the two winning teams advancing to the International Rounds scheduled to be held in Washington, D.C., at the end of March.

The 2007 Jessup compromis and other information concerning the Moot can be found at www.ilsa.org/Jessup.

Anyone interested in participating in the moot next week in Shenzhen or support the Moot in any way is encouraged to contact the Jessup administrator for China, Prof. Wenqi Zhu at Renmin University, who can be reached at wenqizhu@hotmail.com.

Tsinghua professor calls for legalization of prostitution

I thought that headline would get your attention. In this case it's a Tsinghua professor who can speak a little more freely than perhaps others can; he's my countryman Daniel Bell, now in Tsinghua's philosophy department. One very interesting thing his article reveals is that in 1992, a delegation of PRC officials went on a tour of state-sanctioned brothels in Singapore. This might not strike anyone as unusual, but I mean they went officially.

I have a previous post on this subject here.

[Jan. 30th addendum]

Incidentally, here's a proposal circulated within China last summer to have the NPC Standing Committee review China's laws against pornography and prostitution for unconstitutionality. Maybe not the most convincing legal argument, but this is really just a policy proposal in disguise. Thanks to Keith Hand for the reference.

DOC webinar on civil IP litigation in China, Feb. 8

The Office of the China Economic Area of the US Department of Commerce presents a webinar on Feb. 8 on civil IP litigation in China. The blurb is as follows:

Please join our experts James V. Feinerman, Professor and Co-Director, Asian Law and Policy Studies Program at Georgetown University Law Center, Bill Huo, Attorney licensed in U.S. and China specializing in IP commercial disputes at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP and Elaine Gin, Attorney-Advisor at U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a discussion on China’s latest legislative developments, an overview of civil litigation in China and best practices for resolving IP disputes in China’s civil courts.

For more information, click here and scroll down to near the bottom of the page.

USTR report on China's WTO compliance

On December 11, the United States Trade Representative released its annual report to Congress on China's compliance with its WTO obligations. I haven't yet read the report, and my posting of these links to it should not, of course, be construed as agreement with its findings.

• Press release
• Text of report (PDF)

Blocked again

As of a few days ago, this blog is once again blocked in China (as are all blogs in the Law Professor Blogs network). Interestingly, I can still post to it from China. I'm not going to speculate about why the blocking has been imposed - I'm not going to start down the road of figuring out what I've done wrong. ("Why did we arrest you? Why don't you tell us why you think we arrested you?") It's those imposing the block who should have to explain themselves (but I'm not holding my breath).

US/China Legal Exchange, Dec. 2006

I have received the following e-mail (slightly edited) on another listserv:

The US/China Legal Exchange for 2006 is coming up at the beginning of December with sessions in Seattle on December 1, Cleveland on December 5, and Washington, DC on December 8. The Legal Exchange is an annual program between the Department of Commerce and China's Ministry of Commerce that provides the US business and legal community with the opportunity to learn about important changes to China's commercial law directly from Chinese government officials. Every other year, US experts travel to China to discuss legal developments with an audience in China; this year we will host Chinese legal experts discussing China's draft Anti-Monopoly Law and the recent amendments to the Partnership Law. The Chinese delegation will follow the precedent set in previous legal exchanges of having high level officials lead the Chinese delegation. This year's delegation will include Vice Minister Ma Xiuhong (Ministry of Commerce) and Vice Minister Zhang Qiong (State Council, Legislative Affairs Office). The laws to be discussed will have a tremendous impact on companies doing business in China or looking to enter the Chinese market, and the opportunity to hear about these laws directly from Chinese policymakers should be of great interest to anyone working with companies to take advantage of China's rapidly growing economy.

The Commerce Department is directly in charge of logistics for the Washington, DC session and can direct inquiries about the other sessions by those interested in participating. Commerce anticipates being able to accommodate approximately 75 attendees in Washington and while they have not finalized the planning or begun accepting registrations for the program yet, they have asked interested parties to post notices about the program. If you have questions about the program, please directly contact Joel B. Blank in the Office of the Chief Counsel for International Commerce at the U.S. Department of Commerce: jblank@doc.gov.

Chinese Law Prof Blog passes 50,000 mark

On Oct. 21st, this blog reached a milestone: 50,000 visits since the blog was launched in late May, 2005. This is of course nothing compared with the millions of visits to some other blogs, but for a niche blog, maybe not too bad.

CECC hearing on Human Rights and Rule of Law in China, Sept. 28, 2006

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China held a hearing on Sept. 28th on the above subject, with testimony from Jerome Cohen, John Kamm, Minxin Pei, and Xiao Qiang. The testimony of all four is available at the CECC's web site here; you may also download it in PDF format below:

• Download Cohen.pdf

• Download Kamm.pdf

• Download Pei.pdf

• Download Xiao.pdf

CECC hearings on China's commitments in financial services (2)

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China's hearing entitled "China's WTO Financial Services Commitments: A Commercial Rule of Law Assessment," which was originally scheduled for Wednesday, July 26 from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., has been cancelled.

CECC hearings on China's commitments in financial services

I have received the following announcement:

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China will hold a full Commission hearing entitled "China's WTO Financial Services Commitments: A Commercial Rule of Law Assessment," on Wednesday, July 26 from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Room 124 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Senator Hagel will preside.

All CECC hearings are open to the public and the press. Members of the public who wish to attend do not need to respond to this message or otherwise register. News media representatives should see the final paragraph of this announcement.

The witnesses are:

Panel 1

Timothy P. Stratford, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for China Affairs, Office of the United States Trade Representative

Mark Sobel, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Monetary and Financial Policy, U.S. Department of the Treasury

Panel 2

John Frisbie, President, The US-China Business Council

Pieter Bottelier, Visiting Associate Professor, School of Advanced International Studies, The Johns Hopkins University

Nicholas C. Howson, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School

*****************************

For news media representatives: If you have no special equipment needs, you do not need to register in advance. If you need special equipment or services (e.g., malt box, audio feed), please contact Emma Ashburn at (202) 226-3831 not later than close of business on Friday, July 21.

USTR seeks comments on Chinese IPR protection

The Office of the USTR is conducting what it calls a "special provincial review" (SPR) of IPR protection in China, and solicits public comments concerning the locations and issues that should be the focus of the SPR. The deadline is July 14th; there will also apparently be an opportunity to submit more detailed comments later.

The full announcement is here: Download USTR.pdf

Slow month at Chinese Law Prof Blog

Dear readers,

May and the first half of June are going to be a very busy time for me, so I do not expect to be able to post as frequently as before. I hope to return to daily postings in the last half of June.

Best wishes,

Don Clarke

Organ transplants again

The British Transplantation Society has issued a statement accusing Chinese authorities of harvesting the organs of thousands of executed prisoners every year to sell for transplants. A related BBC News report states:

The British Transplantation Society says an accumulating weight of evidence suggests the organs of thousands of executed prisoners in China are being removed for transplants without consent.

Professor Stephen Wigmore, who chairs the society's ethics committee, told the BBC that the speed of matching donors and patients, sometimes as little as a week, implied prisoners were being selected before execution.

The first comprehensive report on this issue of which I am aware is Human Rights Watch, China: Organ Procurement and Judicial Execution in China (August 1994). The research behind this report is extremely thorough and it is still worth reading.

English-language LLM programs in China

Peking University's Law School has just started an English-language LL.M. program in Chinese law. Applications for the 2006-07 academic year are due on May 29th. For more information, click here.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the second English-language LL.M. in Chinese law offered directly by a Chinese law school. The first is at Tsinghua University's Faculty of Law; for more information, click here.

What do China's Internet police do all day?

Now we know: a Chinese reporter recently accompanied them on their virtual rounds, and the report has been translated by the EastSouthWestNorth Web site. Here's the story: Chinese | English. Thanks to the China Digital Times for the links.

Incidentally, Internet users in Shenzhen certainly won't forget that their usage is being monitored. According to last month's Beijing Youth Daily, when Shenzhen users visit the main portals of that city, they will see two cartoon police images floating on their screens to remind them to behave themselves. Below are Jingjing and Chacha (from "jingcha", the Chinese word for police). Was intimidation ever so cute? For a full report, see the China Digital Times story.

Oops, they did it again, say Yahoo critics

Yahoo can't seem to stay out of the news. They have been accused by the writer Liu Xiaobo of having provided evidence to the Chinese police in 2003 leading to the conviction and sentencing to eight years' imprisonment of Li Zhi, a Chinese internet user. Once again, the information seems to have come from Yahoo's Hong Kong-incorporated entity. For a full report in English from the China Digital Times, with links to Chinese sources, click here.

Cartoonist's take on US internet companies in China

I've previously posted here and here about Yahoo's involvement in the Shi Tao case in China; for cartoonist Mark Fiore's animated take on this and related issues, click here and then look for "iRepress 1/25/06" in the menu.

Pu Zhiqiang on "Freezing Point" closure

Here's an essay by Pu Zhiqiang, previously profiled here, on the recent closure of "Freezing Point" (冰点), the too-daring supplement to the China Youth News (中国青年报)：Download PZQ_on_Bingdian.pdf.

Another plagiarism scandal in the legal academy

He Weifang (贺卫方), previously profiled here, is in the spotlight again as he challenges Zhou Yezhong (周叶中), a professor on the law faculty of Wuhan University, to respond to allegations of plagiarism. (For a quick summary of the issue, here's a recent Reuters article in English.) Zhou is what might be called an establishment legal scholar; in 2002, he was invited to lecture Hu Jintao and the Politburo on constitutional law. Among many other positions, he is a deputy secretary of the Law Faculty's Party committee and a member of the Ministry of Education's Higher Education Legal Studies Curriculum Guidance Committee (高等学校法学学科教育指导委员会). In 2005, he was named one of China's ten outstanding young and middle-aged legal scholars (全国十大杰出中青年法学家) by the China Legal Studies Association (中国法学会).

The story broke in late November, 2005, when Wang Tiancheng (王天成), a former Beijing University law department lecturer (1989-1992) and now a businessman, accused Zhou of copying large portions of his own work in "A Constitutionalist Interpretation of Republicanism" (共和主义的宪政解读), which Zhou published (with co-author Dai Jitao (戴激涛), his doctoral student) in September 2005 with the People's Press (人民出版社). The case is particularly sensitive because of Zhou's political standing, and apparently media discussion of the case has been prohibited by the Communist Party's Propaganda Department.

Zhou has apparently refused to say very much about the case so far except to deny in general terms that he did anything wrong, but is reported to have suggested that all references to Wang were removed by or at the instance of the publisher because Wang was out of favor with the authorities, having spent five years in prison in the 1990s for attempting to organize an opposition party.

In his critique of Zhou, posted on the Academic Criticism website (学术批评网), Prof. He expresses his dissatisfaction with this explanation, finding that other authors without political problems were copied without attribution as well, and that the removal of quotation marks along with the citations suggests an intention to conceal the copying. It is also reported that the People's Press has declined Wang's request to issue a written statement backing up Zhou's claim.

In a tongue-in-cheek defense of Prof. Zhou (at least this is how I read it), an anonymous author suggests that the blame probably lies with Dai, his co-author and student. That professors take credit for a student's work is, the author writes, an open secret in China, and the practice works to the benefit of both: the student, an unknown, can publish at a major publishing house, and the professor can add another publication to his CV without having to actually write anything. But, the author writes, in these cases the student has a duty not to embarrass the professor by exposing him to criticism through such sins as plagiarism. Thus, the author writes, Prof. He is too hard on Prof. Zhou by expecting him actually to read carefully and check for plagiarism everything that is published under his name.

Troubles never come singly; just a few days after Wang's attack, an anonymous author on the web charged that Zhou and another Wuhan University Law Faculty member, Jiang Guohua (江国华), had published, each under solely his own name, what was essentially the same article under different titles in different journals. Apparently neither Wuhan University nor the two professors have made any comment on this matter to date.

For a good report in Chinese with more detail on the points covered above, click here.

Chinese Law Prof Blog available again in China

The saga continues. I just arrived in Beijing and tried to access this blog via a local ISP just to see what would happen. I'm pleased to see that it's back on the air, so to speak.

US-China Business Council Legal Cooperation Fund

Here's an announcement about the latest round of grants from the US-China Business Council's Legal Cooperation Fund: Download USCBC-LCF.pdf. The fund operates under the auspices of the USCBC's non-profit educational and research arm, the China Business Forum.

This is a good program for small-scale grants that operates with a minimum of red tape. For information on applying, see the LCF's website.

China Law Prof Blog blocked in China again

Oops, I did it again, apparently. Something in a previous posting - was it my daring expose of the Beijing company selling lunar real estate? - has attracted the attention of the security authorities and the blocking now seems not intermittent, but permanent and complete. If anyone is reading this in China, please let me know.

Illinois in China

Here's the latest from the Dec. 2005-Jan. 2006 Dean's newsletter at the University of Illinois College of Law:

Seven College of Law faculty members will travel to Guangzhou, China from December 3-11 to attend a conference entitled "The Role of Law in Economic Development -- Implications for China in the World," co-sponsored by the University of Illinois College of Law and the Law Faculty of Sun Yat-sen University. Those attending the conference include Professors William Davey, Tom Ginsburg, Jay Kesan, Larry Ribstein, Larry Solum, Charles Tabb, and Cynthia Williams. The relationship between law and economic development has been one of the central concerns of modern social theory and legal scholarship, and is of increasing importance to policy-makers in national governments and multilateral development institutions. It is also a critical issue for China's future, as China seeks continued economic growth while assigning a greater role to law and the legal system in underpinning that growth. The conference is being held as part of Sun Yat Sen University's celebration of the centennial of legal studies in Guangdong.

Chinese Law Prof Blog intermittently blocked again in China

I am sorry to announce that some users in China have again found this blog blocked. Another user reports that he can still access it, so apparently the blocking is not complete. As readers will know, this blog is not exactly a hotbed of anti-Communist Party propaganda. I can only see these problems as a sign of the increasingly paranoid information control being exercised by the Hu-Wen government.

Chinese Law Prof Blog passes 10,000 mark

I'm pleased to report that the Chinese Law Prof Blog marked its 10,000th visit the other day. Now if only every person in China clicked just once on a link to this blog...

More problems with Coudert's China operations

Coudert's China practice seems to have gone largely to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe and DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary. But according to a recent news report:

[S]ome sticking points remain. Three dozen lawyers and staffers in the Beijing office -at least some of whom are going to DLA - now assert that Coudert hasn't complied with severance obligations under Chinese law. An employee there, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a complaint has been filed with the Beijing Justice Bureau and the Chinese Ministry of Labor.

A legal opinion prepared for the employees, a translation of which was obtained by the Recorder, also includes an allegation that Orrick is attempting to transfer to itself Coudert's license to practice in China, which the opinion says would violate Chinese law.

I figure this much is fair use. For the full report, go here.

William C. Jones

I am deeply saddened to announce the passing away last Friday of William Jones, Charles Nagel Professor Emeritus of International and Comparative Law at Washington University Law School in St. Louis. Bill was truly a wonderful human being -- highly respected by his colleagues for his work and warmly beloved for his character. When I first came across Bill's work, I was struck in particular by his writing style: plain and direct, without a touch of jargon. When he found Chinese law confusing -- and it often is -- he said so directly, instead of hiding behind a thicket of impenetrable language and hoping that the reader would blame himself.

I hope in about a week or so to post here a collection of tributes from his colleagues. Until then, here is something written in 1996 by Prof. William Alford of Harvard Law Schoo