Canadian Lawyer

16 M A R C H 2 0 1 8 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m But it's different now. China "doth bestride the narrow world/ Like a Colossus, and we petty men/ Walk under his huge legs and peep about" (Shakespeare's Cassius, describing Julius Caesar). China's economy is the second largest in the world measured by gross domestic product. It is the world's largest manufacturing econo- my and exporter of goods. Within the next decade, as per capita productivity increases, China's economy will out- strip that of the United States in every important respect. Its infrastructure is developing at a dizzying pace — trains, bridges, ports, airports, dams. Its armed forces are growing rapidly in size and sophistication. Increasingly, China is investing and building elsewhere in the world, extending its foreign power and influence. And, more and more, foreign suitors — like our very own Prime Min- ister Justin Trudeau — come to call, hat in hand, buying and selling. Generally, this kind of dramatic development — speedy evolution into a modern and very powerful state — does not happen without the rule of law, a vibrant legal system, an indepen- dent judiciary and an independent and respected legal profession, all smooth- ing the way in life and commerce, nationally and internationally. Devel- opment and expansion of the state and the economy require legal professionals who specialize in structuring intricate arrangements and crafting compromis- es. They require institutions that will impartially enforce agreements and will resolve complex business and property disputes. At a glance, to an outsider, China fills the bill, in some respects at least. The commercial bar of China looks like that of other advanced countries, with large multi-office partnerships engaged in sophisticated transactions (although the numbers are surprisingly small — it is estimated that there are about 350,000 lawyers in China, which has a population of 1.4 billion, compared to about 120,000 lawyers in Canada). But the Chinese lawyer you meet if you go to Shanghai on business or who shows up for a meeting on Bay Street in Toronto or Burrard Street in Vancouver is not representative of the country's profession as a whole. In a 2013 study written for the International Bar Asso- ciation, Chinese lawyer Chen Youxi described the story of his country's legal profession as a tale of two cities. There is what appears to be a prosper- ous and confident civil and commercial law bar. But there is another world — lawyers who deal with administra- tive and criminal matters, particularly so-called "rights defence" (weiquan) lawyers. Weiquan lawyers often face what Chen Youxi calls "insurmountable challenges." Even Chinese commercial lawyers, prosperous and sophisticated, operate in a system where, to function effective- ly, they have to turn their faces to the wall and pretend things are not as they really are. For, in China, state power oday, it's all about China. Once upon a time in the West, China was an unknown land. In the occidental imagination, it was full of peasants wearing conical hats labouring in paddy fields. Poverty stricken, it was run by elaborately festooned emperors and then ideological megalomaniacs. It was a curious and romantic far-off place of no practical importance. As for the Chinese legal system and legal profession, no one other than the occasional obscure scholar knew anything about it. That was OK. After all, what did it matter? T R O U B L E D W O R L D O P I N I O N @philipslayton SCOTT PAGE China's dual bar China's legal profession has two faces: One is a functioning commercial bar, the other is an oppressive arm of the state By Philip Slayton T

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