Legal exchange between the U.S. and China — including education of Chinese students in U.S. law schools, training offered by U.S. legal professionals in China, provision of U.S. materials for Chinese legal institutions, and bilateral dialogues among legal counterparts — was a highly productive if somewhat under-appreciated area of U.S.-China relations during the heyday of engagement. All such exchanges have faced growing challenges since the mid-to-late-2000s, amid the Chinese government’s heightened sensitivity to perceived foreign interference following the Color Revolutions and the Arab Spring, the loss of American prestige after the Global Financial Crisis, and the resurgence of political and ideological criteria in China’s legal institutions. These challenges have been further exacerbated by the downturn in U.S.-China relations, generally, as well as the still-resonant limitations on exchange posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite these difficulties, there remain some promising targets of opportunity for U.S.-China legal exchange in this new era, specifically in areas of mutual regulatory challenges — including vis-à-vis the sharing economy, food and drug safety, environmental protection, data privacy, artificial intelligence, and, of course, public health. Moreover, these targets of opportunity may be better realized today by integrating European perspectives on these regulatory issues, building on an alternate, European history of legal dialogues and exchanges with China. While American and European legal exchange with Chinese counterparts traditionally have proceeded separately from — and even competitively with — one another, there is compelling reason for greater coordination amongst them to be explored today. Accordingly, this talk sketches out a new agenda for U.S.-China legal exchange that is distinctive in terms of both substance and method.

The Lau China Institute are delighted to welcome Neysun Mahboubi, UPenn on Thursday 12 March, 1-2pm for a discussion on legal exchange between the US and China. 

NB Registration is required for all external attendees. Spaces are limited - book early to avoid disappointment. 

About the speaker

Neysun Mahboubi is Director of the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches various courses related to Chinese history, law, and policy, and hosts the China Studies podcast. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Previously he was a Research Scholar of Penn’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China.