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China’s legal system uncovered
LUIS MILLAN
Nearly five years after Henri
Arslanian went to China, with a
Chinese for Dummies book in tow,
to earn a masters degree in law,
the Quebec lawyer is now sharing
with colleagues the subtle intrica-cies of the rapidly evolving Chinese legal system in a unique
program offered by a French-lan-guage Quebec university.
Along with hockey buddy and
Quebec native Jérôme Beaugrand-Champagne, Arslanian is giving a
course on the fundamentals of
Chinese law at the Université de
Sherbrooke aimed at lawyers
whose clients are doing business
or want to do business in the
world’s most flourishing economy.
Launched this spring in col-
laboration with the Confucius
Institute in Quebec, a non-profit
public institution that promotes
Chinese language and culture, the
diploma graduate program will
be offering three courses, com-
prising of 12 credits, at the uni-
versity’s campus in a Montreal
suburb. In addition to the intro-
ductory course which will cover
Chinese economics, history, and
politics, Arslanian and Beau-
grand-Champagne will also be
teaching the practice of business
law in China and project law
management
this fall. The
business law
course will delve
into business,
environmental,
and labour laws
as well as intel-
lectual property
rights and taxa-
tion, all of which will be supple-
mented with tangible examples
such as Google Inc.’s run-in with
Chinese authorities.
eral and specialized training in
the field of Chinese law and pro-
motes scholarly exchanges with
outside institutions
“If you want to learn about
Canadian law, you can pick up the
books, read and get a general
sense of Canadian law,” remarked
Arslanian, who has an LL.M. in
Chinese law from Tsinghua Uni-
versity in Beijing. “But to be able
to fully understand Chinese law
you also need to have a back-
ground in Chinese economics,
history, politics, international
relations and business in China.”
Throughout most of its history,
the Chinese legal system was
based on the Confucian philoso-
phy of social control through
moral education coupled with the
so-called legalist emphasis on
codified law, China has now
largely adopted the German civil
law tradition. Hong Kong’s legal
framework, on the other hand, is
based on English common law,
supplemented by local legislation.
“The Chinese cultural and
legal context is very different,”
observed Beaugrand-Cham-
pagne, who has been practising
law in China for over a decade,
with extensive experience in for-
eign direct investment, mergers
and acquisitions, and mining.
“China is still, from a legal stand-
point, a country with a very
young legal tradition—some 30
years. But over the past three
decades it has undergone enor-
mous changes over the past three
decades, always for the better.”
Canadian businesses, how-
ever, keen to strengthen ties with
the world’s fastest-growing eco-
nomic juggernaut all too often
gloss over the differences, and
accompanying risks and expos-
ure, of doing business with the
Chinese. While taking steps to
mitigate risks makes sound busi-
ness sense, so does being aware of
the distinct business and legal
underpinnings that reign in
China. Contracts, for instance, are
often a source of conflict. Unlike
in the Western world, where con-
tracts are viewed as binding
agreements between parties, in
China contracts are perceived to
be akin to an invitation to do
business together, and therefore
they do not hold the same bind-
ing value, explained Arslanian.
