This Week in Asia

Meet the 8 Chinese judges who'll sit on belt and road cases

According to the Supreme People's Court in Beijing, disputes regarding the "Belt and Road Initiative"- President Xi Jinping's plan to fund infrastructure links throughout Eurasia - will be handled by two China International Commercial Courts (CICC).

The group is not very diverse - they are all Supreme People's Court judges and all but one are members of the Communist Party. The exception is Shen Hongyu; she is a member of the Jiusan Society, which is one of China's seven pseudo-parties whose job is effectively to agree with the Communist Party while appearing independent.

Workers in the Thar desert, Pakistan, build a Chinese-backed power plant. Photo: Bloomberg

Government propaganda promotes Chinese President Xi Jinping's signature Belt and Road Initiative at a subway station in Beijing. Photo: AP

Others point to the fact that China has enforced a couple of uncontroversial judgments from foreign courts to suggest it will create more procedures to do so.

Chinese and Pakistani flags at the Chinese-backed Gwadar port in Pakistan. Photo: Bloomberg

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2018. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

More from This Week in Asia

This Week in Asia4 min readWorld
PM Lee Says Singapore Risks 'Serious Trouble' If It Becomes 'Ordinary' In Final Key Speech
Singapore must have the "right politics" or risk ending up "worse than other countries" if it allows issues such as populism to take root in society, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has warned in his final key speech before he cedes power on May 15. "
This Week in Asia3 min readWorld
Singapore Sees Fewer New Chinese Family Offices After Money-laundering Crackdown
In Singapore, the growth of Chinese family offices has been slowing amid the fallout from last year's multibillion-dollar money-laundering scandal and tighter checks on new applicants. More than S$3 billion (US$2.2 billion) in assets have been seized
This Week in Asia5 min readInternational Relations
US Vs China, Israel Vs Iran, India Vs Pakistan: Asia Plays With Fire As Nuclear War Safety Net Frays
A high-stakes game of geopolitical brinkmanship is playing out across the Middle East and Asia, with Israel and Iran trading missile strikes; India and Pakistan locked in a multi-headed rocket arms race; and power struggles on the Korean peninsula an

Related Books & Audiobooks