Why is it being so cautious?
—Fairness, Professionalism, Convenience—form a mission statement for the China International Commercial Court, which held its first public hearing in Xi’an on May 29th. When Chaguan attended the session, alongside foreign diplomats and representatives of China’s Supreme People’s Court, that three-word promise in English and Chinese shone from a digital screen dominating the bronze and marble entrance hall of this, China’s newest judicial institution.
The belt-and-road court is part of the supreme court. It has appointed an “expert committee” with 32, mostly foreign, members. But their role is only to advise the tribunals and to mediate should parties prefer to avoid litigation. A French member, Tao Jingzhou, who heads the China practice of Dechert, a law firm, laments in a new paper that the court is “constrained in many ways”.
It is easier to grasp the scale of China’s ambitions than to understand what international commercial law with Chinese characteristics might look like. In March the supreme court’s president, Zhou Qiang, delivered his annual report to the legislature. Item one was a pledge to uphold the Communist Party’s “absolute leadership” over the work of Chinese courts—for China rejects judicial independence, calling it a false Western ideal.