Could foreign judges give China’s legal system the expertise to go global?

Name: China and 30+ countries establish international mediation organisation in Hong Kong
Uploaded: 2026-03-10T02:00:12.000Z
Duration: 1 min 56 s
Description: China and 30+ countries establish international mediation organisation in Hong Kong

The country’s arbitration bodies are not plugged into the international system, a former justice official says

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Framed by Beijing as a public good for the Global South, IOMed aims to “fill an institutional gap” in global governance. Photo: Dickson Lee

Xinlu Liangin Beijing

Published: 10:00am, 10 Mar 2026Updated: 4:44pm, 10 Mar 2026

China should bring in judges from overseas and expand arbitration pilot programmes to extend the international reach of its legal system, according to a former senior justice official.

Xiong Xuanguo, who was vice-minister of justice from 2016 to 2023, said China’s legal system was not integrated with others around the world, making it difficult for the country to enforce its court judgments abroad.

To tackle the problem, China should train its arbitrators to meet global standards and also hire experienced foreign arbitrators, said Xiong, now a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top political advisory body.

“We should enlist some well-recognised international arbitrators and mediators to guide arbitration and mediation institutions as they go global, to make our arbitration bodies more visible and to compete fairly abroad,” he told the South China Morning Post on Thursday afternoon on the sidelines of the “two sessions” in Beijing.

During a social sciences sector panel discussion, Xiong also said that areas such as Shanghai, Guangdong province and Hong Kong should forge links with internationally influential commercial mediation bodies, and encourage more places across China to set up pilot international commercial arbitration centres.

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China and 30+ countries establish international mediation organisation in Hong Kong

China’s push to expand the overseas reach of its law is part of its proposed five-year plan that will run until 2030 and is expected to be endorsed at the end of the two sessions.

Could foreign judges give China’s legal system the expertise to go global?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The country’s arbitration bodies are not plugged into the international system, a former justice official says

The country’s arbitration bodies are not plugged into the international system, a former justice official says