In 2018, the Supreme People’s Court Monitor published 25 posts and had almost 39,009 page views, from 146 jurisdictions, primarily from:

• United States;
• (mainland) China;
• Hong Kong;
• United Kingdom.

with Germany, Australia and Singapore trailing. Mainland China is in second place for the first time.

Why did I do less blogging when compared to 2017, when I published 41 posts?  Perhaps it can be attributed to competing professional obligations–including writing several academic-style articles (all in the production pipeline), and the significant effort required to unpack SPC documents and initiatives in under 1500 words.  Perhaps also attributable to failing to realize that the “perfect is the enemy of the good.” The many developments in 2018 have left me with a large backlog of documents and issues to discuss.

In 2018, the work of the Monitor resulted in several official and semi-official honors (listed in chronological order):

1. in June, the honor (and the challenge) of giving lecture #19 (in Chinese) as part of the lecture series (大讲堂) sponsored by the Supreme People’s Court (SPC)’s China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence, as reported in this earlier blogpost. It was the last lecture that Judge Jiang Huiling chaired before he was transferred from the Institute to the National Judicial College and I’m not aware that another lecture has been held since he was transferred.  I am very grateful to Judge Jiang (for his invitation and comments) and the two commentators, Professor Hou Meng, now of Renmin University Law School, and Huang Bin, senior editor of Journal of Law Application, for their thoughtful comments;
2. In August, the honor of being selected to the China International Commercial Court’s International Expert Committee (Expert Committee), and the challenge of giving an eight-minute speech with substantive content that struck the right tone at the first meeting of the Expert Committee.  As reported in this earlier blogpost, the attendees at that first meeting included senior officials from within the SPC and related institutions, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce.
3. In November, speaking at the third annual UK-China Rule of Law Roundtable, sponsored by the Great Britain China Centre (GBCC) (an introduction to GBCC is found here) and the China Law Society (CLS). The Roundtable focused on international commercial dispute resolution (CDR) Fortunately, GBCC takes an inclusive approach to its high-powered and congenial delegations. The delegation included a number of us with other than UK passports.

Since the blog was founded almost six years ago:

Page views: 108,990
Jurisdictions: 183
Posts: 212

Most followers use Twitter to follow the Monitor. Although Twitter is not accessible in mainland China without a VPN, 21% of the Monitor’s Twitter followers are based there.

Thank you to:

• the many judges and other staff members currently or formerly affiliated with the SPC (and its institutions) and local courts, who helped me understand how the SPC and lower courts operate and nuances of life in the Chinese court system in countless ways;
• my colleagues and students at the School of Transnational Law, Peking University (Shenzhen);
• my fellow bloggers Jeremy Daum (Chinalawtranslate.com), Wei Changhao (npcobserver.com, Mark Cohen (Chinaipr.com), and Eugene Fidell (globalmjreform.blogspot.com);
• the law schools and other institutions around the world, that have listed my blog as a Chinese law resource;
• law and political science professors who have recommended the Monitor to students and many others in other institutions who have provided support in various ways;
• journalists and scholars writing about the Chinese judiciary who have cited the Monitor;
• organizers of conferences and other events in Beijing, Changsha, Shanghai, Washington, DC and New York.

A special thank you to those who had the fortitude to read drafts of articles and blogposts and give frank comments.