Björn Ahl delivered a keynote at the ECLS annual conference in Hong Kong on 20 September 2024 on Chinese Law and Party Ideology. 

In recent years, there has been a notable increase in the number of scholarly debates in English literature concerning the nature of the Chinese legal system. Notions such as the turn towards legality, authoritarian or illiberal legality, the dual prerogative/normative state, or a hybrid Party-state socialist rule of law appear to relate to the readjustment of the legal and the extra-legal/political, or in institutional terms, the state and the Party in the post-2013 period. The keynote examined the relationship between Party ideology and the law from three perspectives. Firstly, it considered the political content of questions included in judicial exams held between 2007 and 2012. Secondly, it analysed the extent to which courts have made references to concepts of Party ideology between 2010 and 2016. Thirdly, it examined the recent campaign to apply socialist core values in courts, in particular the Supreme People's Court Guiding Opinion on the Integration of Socialist Core Values in Court Decisions of 2021. In contrast to the recent debate about the nature of China's legal system, which is often informed by social sciences and situated at the theoretical or meta-theoretical level, the keynote adopted a textual approach to examining the relationship between the law and ideology in order to present a nuanced account of primary sources from slightly different periods and fields.

The 18th Annual Conference of the European China Law Studies Association (ECLS) was held in Hong Kong from 19 to 21 September 2024. The conference was be hosted and organized by the Faculty of Law of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK LAW).  

As a side event to this conference, the Smart Court project team of the chair of Chinese Legal Culture organized a symposium with numerous international speakers to discuss recent developments and the ongoing collaborative research in this field. Presentations covered aspects such as Chinese Internet Courts, Due Process Rights in Online LItigattion, Smart Court Services Facilitating Access to Justice, Blockchain Evidence, AI-assisted Routine Tasks of Judges, Live Streaming of Court Trials, Open Access Court Decision Databases, Value Alignment of AI-assisted Adjudication, AI-assisted Sentencing, Accountability for AI-assisted Adjudication, The Evolution of Smart Enforcement in China, AI at Court Management: China and Beyond, and Involvement of Private Actors in Developing Smart Court Technologies.

Dr. Daniel Sprick contributed an articel to the Routledge Resources Online – Chinese Studies with the title: China’s Approach to the Suppression of Terrorism and Extremism.

Abstract:The fight against terrorism came late to China. Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, violent separatism especially in Tibet and Xinjiang had been frequently met with harsh counter-insurgency measures, but neither these uprisings nor the respective criminal justice campaigns were officially denominated as supressing terrorism. This changed dramatically after 11 September 2001, when China aligned itself with the international War on (Islamic) Terror. This impetus from abroad led to a re-classification of certain violent acts in Xinjiang of the past as terrorist attacks perpetrated by Islamic extremists. Furthering this terroristic turn, China reacted to its worst experience with terrorism, namely the Kunming attack of 2014, by widening not only the scope of its criminal law but also declaring a People’s War on Terror (反恐人民战争), which inter alia established a highly repressive deradicalisation programme. This system, with its huge network of re-education camps, targets persons who are perceived as a security threat for deviating from the officially sanctioned majority culture of a predominantly secularised Han populace. Especially, discrepancies between religious beliefs and practices of Xinjiang’s Muslim population and a legally accepted behaviour within the boundaries of ‘normal (正常)’ and ‘Sinicised (中国化)’ religious activities easily produce evidence for alleged extremism or for a possibility of radicalisation, which may result in prolonged detention.

In IPRAX 5/2024, Daniel Sprick published the article "Building a 'Foreign-Related Rule of Law': China’s State Immunity Law".

Abstract: With its new Law on Foreign State Immunity, the People’s Republic of China abandons its long-standing notion of absolute state immunity and introduces a paradigmatic shift towards the internationally dominant restrictive approach of state immunity. Furthermore, this law needs to be understood as a building block of China’s ambitions for a stronger impact of its legal system around the globe within the agenda of a “foreign-related rule of law”. This paper will therefore discuss this new avenue for the resolution of commercial disputes between private parties and states before Chinese courts, which is certainly also aimed at providing enhanced protection for Chinese businesses considering their legal risks stemming out of China’s going global strategy and especially its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Furthermore, China’s new Law on Foreign State Immunity will be analyzed within the specific setting of China’s approach toward the rule of law and its limited legal certainty as well as its political functionality understanding of Chinese courts.

In the context of the advanced summer programme 'Terrorism, counter-terrorism and the rule of law' of the T.M.C Asser Institute in The Hague, Dr. Daniel Sprick made a presentation on recent developemnts in China's counter-terrorism efforts in Xinjiang with the title 'China and its Terrorism: Embedding a Culture of Control in Everyday Life'.

At the University Münster, Dr. Daniel Sprick gave a talk on China's approach to the rule of law and its impact on research security and academic cooperation.

On July 5th, Dr. Daniel Sprick gave a presentation on the system and recent developments of China's patent law at the Forschungszentrum Jülich. He discussed inter alia China's push for higher quality patents, the confidentiality review mechanism for Chinese patents and the different routes for patent enforcement in China. 

On 27 June 2024 Björn Ahl was a guest at China Dialog and discussed with Eva Pils, King’s College London, the modernisation of the Chinese legal system. China Dialog is organised by Maximilian Meyer, University of Bonn.

In cooperation-with Dr. Daniel Fuchs (Humboldt University, Berlin), Marianne von Bloomberg and Dr. Daniel Sprick organized an international workshop on the standardization of digital technologies in China. This interdisciplinary workshop brought together experts in the field of law, political sciences, sociology as well as practitioners in the field of standards and law for the purpose of bridging a knowledge gap in
understanding the dynamics of China’s rising standards power and the direct or indirect input of non-state (and non-Chinese) actors in shaping the development and application of standards for digital technologies.

Dr. Monika Prusinowska from the University of Barcelona and Dr. Daniel Sprick team up for an Innovative Tandem Collaboration in the context of the Cologne International Forum with a project on "The Legal Dimension of China’s Presence in Latin America: Opportunities, Risks, and Responses". This Project sheds light on a critical yet under-analyzed aspect of China's growing presence in Latin America: the legal implications. While the economic, social, and political dimensions have received more attention, the complex legal landscape remains underexplored. This Project shall contribute to filling this gap, offering an opportunity to PhD students and young career scholars to deepen their understanding of the impact of Chinese approaches to law and its impact on Latin America as well as their transnational and global implications.

At the 17th international conference "Computers, Privacy & Data Protection" in Brussels, Daniel Sprick joined Prof. Julie Cohen (Georgetown), Prof. Fumio Shimpo (Tokyo) and Zoe Kardasiadou (European Commission) for a panel on "Power, Convenience, and Prestige in the Governance and Legal Regulation of AI" and gave a presentation on "China’s Large Legislative Model for AI: Of Guidelines, Regulations and Standards".

At the invitation of the School of Law and Economy of China at the University Warsaw, Dr. Daniel Sprick held a lecture on "Economic Crimes and Economic Criminal Law in China", discussing cases such as Sanlu or E-zubao as well as China's efforts to fight telecommunication fraud. 

On May 17th, Dr. Daniel Sprick gave a talk at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw on China's approaches to AI Regualtion and its notion of AI value alignment.

The China Competence Centre of the University of Würzburg (CCCUW) and the Coimbra Group (CG) Global Partnerships Working Group invited colleagues from CG Universities to learn about the current state of EU-China relations among HEIs, to exchange experiences with related national and EU policies, and to discuss ways ahead that allow universities to continue cooperation while raising awareness and mitigating risks.European Universities’ cooperation with China.

Daniel Sprick presented the University of Cologne's Guidelines for Cooperation with China and discused selected issues of Chinese law and legal practice as risk factors for academic cooperation with China. 

https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/en/research/china-competence-centre/events/2024-1/

Daniel Sprick published a new article on the pocket crime of illegal fundraising in China:

Systemic Convictions: China’s Fundraising Crimes and its Financial System

Abstract

Fundraising crimes are legion in China. And this is not only a criminological observation as the respective provisions of the Criminal Law can be applied in an extremely broad scope of cases, ranging from personal loans or brokering investments for small businesses to platform-based P2P lending operations. Its unclear demarcation produces legal uncertainty that has its root cause not only in vague provisions of the Criminal Law or broad legal interpretations of the judiciary, but also in the systemic function of these crimes. This paper argues that normative analyses about legal (un) certainty and regulatory necessities in the field of illegal fundraising in China need to be widened and additionally include a perspective of political expediency. The financial sector in China is highly dominated by state actors and state-owned banks, which inevitably follow policy directives and form a cornerstone of the regime’s control over the economic system. For the purpose of maintaining this status quo, it is extremely valuable to retain the possibility to criminalize a wide range of financial interactions that would circumvent the state-dominated banking system. Particularly, the crime of “Illegally Absorbing Public Savings” provides the authorities with such a device and should therefore be understood as an important foothold of China’s authoritarian legality in its capital markets. This crime is therefore positioned at the intersection of China’s Leninist notion of ubiquitous control and its market-based economy.

On February 19th 2024, Daniel Sprick led a workshop at the RWTH Aachen University on legal dimensions of academic cooperation with China. As part of the ENTRANCE (Expertise & Transfer Network on China & Europe) project, this workshop discussed the Chinese legal system in general and selected issues such as academic freedom, export controls, data security, protection and transfer as well as China's anti-espionage law.