By Zhu Xinyue, edited and with further comments in italics by Susan Finder. Unless otherwise indicated, references to “I” and “my” in this article refer to Susan Finder.
This is Part 2. It covers the following sections of the Report:
- Promoting High-Level Opening-Up Through High-Quality Justice” (Foreign-Related Rule of Law);
- Regulating the Exercise of Judicial Power;
- Accepting Oversight from All Quarters; and
- 2026 Work Plan.
Part 1 is here and covers:
- What is New
- Safeguarding High-Level Security with High-Quality Judicial Services
- Supporting High-Quality Development Through High-Quality Judicial Services
- Safeguarding a High Quality of Life Through High-Quality Justice.
The Report provides insights into the multifaceted role and operations of the Chinese courts.
IV. Foreign-Related Chapter
As noted above, the Report contains a separate chapter on foreign-related matters (涉外法治). This is a first and signals the growing importance of the foreign-related work of the SPC. It emphasizes four themes: safeguarding national and people’s interests, ensuring equal protection for Chinese and foreign parties, making China a “preferred destination for international dispute resolution,” and shaping global norms. All of these are evergreen themes for foreign-related adjudication, as evidenced by the SPC’s 2022 specialized report to the NPC Standing Committee and other articles on this blog.
These themes track the Plan’s goals of aligning with high-standard international trade rules, expanding opening-up, and improving compatibility between domestic and international rules. Ch. 58 calls for accelerating China’s foreign-related rule-of-law system and capacity. The January 2026 Central Political-Legal Work Conference calls for a dedicated foreign-related rule-of-law plan as part of the Plan (编制法治保障体系和涉外法治能力建设“十五五”规划). It is unclear whether this would be made public.
In the section on “resolutely safeguarding national and people’s interests,” courts concluded 159,000 foreign-related cases during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, a 66% increase over the 13th Five Year period. These included 49,000 foreign-related IP cases and 12,000 maritime cases, up 115.9% and 84.6% respectively. The latter links to the more robust assertion of jurisdiction by the Chinese maritime courts. The Report stresses full implementation of the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, countering unlawful unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction” (foreign extraterritorial jurisdiction), guiding outbound Chinese companies on compliance and risk management. The latter phrase is a reminder of the unique role of the Chinese courts. As one experienced judge told me: “It is part of our work to ‘serve the greater situation,’ and courts have performance indicators concerning judicial suggestions/advice. “So we take away a lot of business from lawyers by providing free legal advice.”
In the section on “equally protecting the lawful rights and interests of Chinese and foreign parties,” the Report invokes WTO-consistent principles, including national treatment. This is intended to signal to foreign investors and international disputants that Chinese courts will apply internationally recognized norms despite geopolitical tensions. The Report mentions that courts protected trade secrets developed abroad and accepted supplementary data in a pharmaceutical patent case (see Mark Cohen’s commentary). Beijing and Shanghai courts ranked among the world’s best for judicial fairness and credibility in the World Bank’s Business Ready benchmarking. This is linked to special action plans by the Shanghai government (here is the 2026 version) and an implementing special action plan by the Shanghai Higher People’s Court.
In the section on making “preferred place for international commercial dispute resolution,” the Report notes that the SPC issued Opinions on the High Quality Development of the International Commercial Courts. As that policy document flagged, the Chinese courts , including the Shanghai Maritime Court (and Financial Court) have standard jurisdiction clauses on their websites. In 2025, a tiny number (23) cases with no substantial connection to China were submitted to courts based on parties’ jurisdiction agreements. Courts mediated 155 foreign-related cases through the one-stop international commercial dispute-resolution platform. In arbitration and international judicial assistance, courts handled 21,000 judicial review of arbitration, up 12.8%, (most domestic) and approved the recognition and enforcement of 108 foreign arbitral awards. Hainan courts supported Free Trade Port reforms and handled the first foreign-related ad hoc arbitration case. Courts processed 6,061 requests under treaties or reciprocity in 2025, up 7.4%, reducing civil and commercial service time by 12 days. Courts recognized and enforced 972 foreign judgments, doubling year on year. Chinese civil and commercial judgments gained recognition in more foreign courts.
In the section on “actively participating in global governance,” the Report highlights China’s contribution to international rulemaking, supporting Ch. 23 on Belt and Road co-construction and Ch. 24 on a shared future for mankind. Although the SPC has done so for many years, this work has become more important since the 2014 “Rule of Law Plenum. I found that the Report reiterated points I have made in recent presentations, such as SPC participation in the drafting of the Beijing Convention on the Judicial Sale of Ships and Chinese courts training judges and judicial officials from 38 jurisdictions and hosting large-scale events, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Chief Justices’ Conference.
V. Upholding Fairness and Justice: Regulating the Exercise of Judicial Power
This section focuses on internal court operations: judicial training; internal supervision and management; technology; and Party supervision.
As mentioned earlier, the Report highlights the [ongoing] publication of the Unified National Training Textbooks for Judges, edited by senior SPC judges and academics, with the participation of 413 experienced SPC personnel (审判骨干). (Those further interested can follow the link to a detailed description of the textbook series’ content. President Zhang described the textbook series as distilling Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, embedding 9,955 practical Q&As to “consolidate theoretical foundations and resolve practical dilemmas” for judges, or as I have said elsewhere, intended to be politically correct and practically oriented.
In the Report, internal supervision and management incorporates a broad range of topics. This section first addresses a notable concern of President Zhang Jun — senior court leaders’ supervision through the 阅核 (review) system. (This article contains a video of him explaining the difference between the review system and the pre-form administrative review of cases. The section then addresses SPC guidance of the lower courts in different forms. It issued 15 judicial interpretations in 2025 (note lower courts are not permitted to issue them), 20 guiding cases, and 641 typical cases in 101 groups. As I wrote here, President Zhang Jun favors guiding the lower courts through typical cases. He has also created new forms of guidance. The People’s Court Case Database (人民法院案例库) added over 5,300 entries (up from 4,700); the “FaDaWang Court Answers Platform (法答网)” Q&A platform recorded over 890,000 responses (most not made public) (up from 694,000) and almost 11 million judgments were published online (+13.3%).
This section briefly addresses “empowering justice with technology,” highlighting another of President Zhang Jun’s initiatives, the establishment of 一张网 (unified platform for the courts, enabling “full-process” supervision of each case. The Report emphasizes that artificial intelligence remains auxiliary: judges retain sole judicial responsibility.
On court discipline, inspection teams audited eight high people’s courts. Nine SPC staff (干警) and 995 local court staff members were investigated and disciplined (the internal euphemism is “出了事情).
On grassroots capacity, the Report focuses on internal resource reallocation. The Report emphasizes the recent policy of hiring of retired judges as mediators. Over 3,700 retired judges now contribute “silver-haired” expertise to dispute resolution. A second batch of “weak courts” was strengthened and 100 “Fengqiao-style” tribunals serve as models. The Report notes that the courts implement Party policies designed to support the development of Western regions, such as Fujian–Ningxia cadre exchanges and judicial secondments to frontier regions.
VI. Upholding Fairness and Justice: Consciously Accepting Oversight from All Quarters
This section highlights how multiple institutions, particularly the NPC and its Standing Committee, supervise the SPC and lower courts and how the SPC coordinates with other institutions. This discussion is limited to the NPC (and its Standing Committee) and the procuratorate
This section leads with a summary of how the SPC both accepts supervision by the NPC and its Standing Committee and seeks NPC support (about which my forthcoming article contains a more detailed overview) such as: the recording and review mechanism for judicial interpretations and normative documents; specialized reports, implementation of NPC Standing Committee views, and delegate suggestions, and involves NPC delegates in a variety of court activities.
Regarding prosecutorial supervision, courts heard 8,728 protest cases and revised 3,992 judgments, down 15.3% and 5.2% year on year and the two institutions jointly analyzed civil cases subject to prosecutorial supervision. Procuratorial supervision of enforcement cases is next on the agenda.
VII. Work Plan for 2026
The Report provides a three-paragraph overview of the 2026 work plan, stressing implementation of Xi Jinping Rule of Law Thought, the spirit of recent Party Plenums, Party Center arrangements, and the Plan. This is consistent with the Reform Outline.
The first paragraph summarizes how the courts plan to “serve the greater situation” and “provide justice for the people.” A broad range matters are emphasized: implementing the state security and social stability maintenance responsibility system; cyberspace governance; juvenile delinquency (although few juvenile cases go into the court system); and judicial protection of human rights (presumably in the criminal process). It reiterates supervising and supporting law-based administration (see the 2024 specialized report); and collaborating (with Party and administrative authorities) to promote comprehensive governance centers Professor Wang Yuedan has a forthcoming paper on these centers, as does Liu Zhixing (who presented his findings in my class this spring). This paragraph section reiterates resolving petitions and complaints and promoting the substantive resolution of conflicts and disputes. As expected, the summary emphasizes judicial protection of intellectual property rights to support innovation-driven development and artificial intelligence-related developments, anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition, further implementing the Law on Promoting the Private Economy by improving the long-term mechanism for regulating law enforcement and judicial work involving enterprises.
In a series of phrases, this paragraph flags many priorities for the courts, of which we mention a selection: linking enforcement procedures with the bankruptcy system; improving judicial protection of the ecological environment (details released in a recent press release) improving the protection of the rights and interests of those from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and overseas Chinese (see 2024-2025 developments); issues involving the interests of women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities. Employment matters are flagged as well, as signalled last year.
The second paragraph focuses on implementing the Sixth Five-Year Reform Outline (see my related analysis) by, among other matters, strengthening foreign-related and maritime adjudication, optimizing specialized courts, improving case management and litigation services, strengthening grassroots courts and tribunals, and deepening digital courts.
The third paragraph emphasizes how the courts will build a “steel army” (铁军) of judges. This term has its roots in Party discourse and is also applied to the procuratorate. It otherwise continues familiar themes: strict Party governance, whole-process people’s democracy, supervision, capacity building, and work-style improvement. It also mentions cooperation with law schools in training specialists in foreign-related, finance, and environmental matters, specialized adjudication training, and the role of retired judges (particularly in mediation).
VIII. Concluding Remarks
The Report is a masterpiece of Chinese political-legal discourse, conveying how the SPC, under strengthened Party leadership, supports national and Party strategies and policies to better serve the dynamic needs of the Party and nation. Although the Chinese political and constitutional system considers the courts a subsidiary constituent institution in the Party and state’s governance system, the transformation of China domestically and internationally over the past 30 years, plus the greater importance of law in governance means that the SPC has an increasingly important, unique, multifaceted, and dynamic role domestically and internationally. _____________________________________________
Many thanks to an anonymous peer reviewer for comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Supreme People's Court Monitor 
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