Xi Jinping urges China to arm itself with stronger laws and better lawyers for ‘international struggle’
- President says country should move faster on legislation relating to foreign matters, particularly around sanctions and interference
- He also calls for efforts to ensure lawyers ‘voluntarily support the Communist Party and our socialist legal system’
“We must use legal means to conduct international struggle,” Xi said in an article published on Tuesday in Qiushi, the Communist Party’s main theoretical journal.
“[We] must follow the rule of prioritising the most urgent tasks, strengthen legislation related to external matters and further complete laws and regulations against sanctions, interference and long-arm jurisdiction.”
02:23
China passes anti-sanctions law to counter punitive action by foreign countries
The article was an edited version of remarks Xi made on December 6 at a study session with the Politburo, the top 25 members of the party’s ruling elite.
The area of law had increasingly become a focal point of international competition, he said.
“Internationally, the world has entered a turbulent period of reformation, and international competition is taking place more and more in the form of competition of institutions, rules and laws,” he said.
In the article, Xi also called for incorporating legal cooperation into bilateral ties, to “expand the security chain” to protect China’s overseas interests.
He called for better training of talent to address external-related legal matters.
