Chinese Judgments Go Global: Emerging Systemic Challenges and Confidence Deficit
January 29, 2026
Over the past decade, many jurisdictions have witnessed a marked increase in cases involving the cross-border recognition and enforcement of judgments. This trend reflects the practical need to recover debts across borders and to prevent evasive debtors from hiding assets abroad.
China is rapidly catching up with the international community in this domain, with a growing number of foreign judgments being recognized in China and an increasing number of Chinese judgments enforced overseas. This development represents a historic shift. To sustain further progress, it is essential to examine the persistent challenges that hinder the establishment of a smooth and reliable Sino-foreign judgment-enforcement regime.
This post seeks to identify the central obstacles and propose potential pathways for addressing them, with particular emphasis on the enforcement of Chinese judgments in foreign jurisdictions. Although the recognition and enforcement of judgments between China and the rest of the world is inherently reciprocal and interdependent, this post focuses primarily on the relatively underexplored outbound direction—i.e., the enforcement of Chinese judgments abroad—because it is here that the most serious obstacles exist. Understanding and removing these obstacles is the key to sustaining and expanding the framework of mutual recognition.
A Fast-Shifting Landscape
In any jurisdiction—including China—the enforcement of outbound domestic judgments is fundamentally interconnected with the enforcement of inbound foreign judgments. Accordingly, when considering the recognition and enforcement of Chinese judgments abroad, it is equally necessary to examine how foreign judgments are treated in China.
A decade ago, enforcing foreign judgments in China was nearly impossible without a bilateral treaty or clear evidence of de facto reciprocity. Today, the landscape looks dramatically different—not because of an expansion of treaties or conventions, but because of the progressive reinterpretation of reciprocity by Chinese courts.
In recent years, Chinese courts have recognized dozens of foreign judgments. Statistics from China Justice Observer (CJO) indicate that Chinese courts recognized thirty-two foreign judgments between 2016 and 2025, compared with two during 2006-2015, two during 1996-2005. This sharp increase has been reinforced by instances in which foreign courts first recognized Chinese judgments, prompting reciprocal action by Chinese courts. The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has played a leading role in this transformation, guiding lower courts to adopt a more flexible understanding of reciprocity. Notably, under the de jure reciprocity test—one of three new tests, alongside reciprocal consensus and reciprocal commitment—reciprocity is now considered to exist if Chinese judgments may be recognized or enforced under the foreign jurisdiction’s laws. As Bill Dodge and Wenliang Zhang have observed, China’s judiciary has become an active participant in the emerging global framework for judgment enforcement, progressively aligning its domestic rules with international norms.
At the same time, foreign jurisdictions have shown growing openness to enforcing Chinese judgments. According to CJO, twenty-one Chinese judgments were recognized abroad between 2016 and 2025, compared with nine during 2006-2015, and two during 1996-2005. This mutual evolution has given rise to what might be called a “follow-suit recognition model”—a pattern in which recognition by one jurisdiction encourages reciprocal recognition by another.
The relaxation of rigid reciprocity barriers has facilitated a meaningful expansion of the cross-border enforceability of Chinese judgments. Two key forces are driving this shift. First, the growing tendency of Chinese debtors to transfer or hide assets abroad compels creditors to seek enforcement overseas. Second, foreign courts are motivated by the expectation of reciprocal treatment by Chinese courts. In the absence of treaties, reciprocity is the only basis on which Chinese courts will recognize foreign judgments. Courts in the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Australia, and Canada have all enforced Chinese judgments, often citing the importance of ensuring mutual recognition.
Why Outbound Enforcement Remains the Bottleneck
However, enforcement of Chinese judgments abroad is far from assured. Two broad categories of obstacles stand out. First, legal hurdles in foreign jurisdictions may still limit the recognition of Chinese judgments. Second, Chinese judgment creditors may lack the necessary confidence to pursue enforcement abroad because of financial constraints and risk aversion in unfamiliar foreign judicial settings.
Legal Hurdles
Traditionally, refusal grounds such as public policy or lack of reciprocity were frequently invoked, but these defenses now appear far less significant. Practice shows that the public policy exception is seldom applied, and the reciprocity requirement has gradually been relaxed.
However, service-of-process issues have become increasingly prominent, as evasive debtors often avoid appearing in Chinese proceedings and enforcement abroad of default judgments issued by Chinese courts has become more common. Chinese service practices are therefore being tested in foreign enforcement proceedings.
Similarly, when foreign judgments are enforced in China, service requirements have long posed difficulties and continue to be a key concern today. For instance, in Rockefeller Technology Investments (Asia VII) v. Changzhou SinoType Technology Co., service of process became a major point of contention. If the prevailing party in that case were to seek enforcement of the U.S. judgment in China, Chinese courts would likely question the adequacy of U.S. procedures for service.
A further challenge—rarely seen in past practice—relates to allegations that the Chinese legal system as a whole lacks impartial tribunals or due process guarantees. Two prominent cases illustrate this trend. In Shanghai Yongrun Investment Management Co. v. Kashi Galaxy Venture Capital Co., the judgment debtor argued that the Chinese judgment “was rendered under a system which does not provide impartial tribunals or procedures compatible with due process,” citing U.S. State Department human rights reports. The New York Supreme Court initially accepted this argument—a ruling that, if upheld, could have signaled a categorical rejection of all Chinese judgments. Fortunately, the Appellate Division reversed, holding that systemic allegations cannot substitute for case-specific evidence and that the cited reports were insufficient to show a lack of fairness in the particular case. The matter remains under appeal, however. Resort to such defenses risks significantly delaying enforcement of Chinese judgments abroad and discouraging creditors from seeking recognition.
A similar challenge appeared in New Zealand in Hebei Huaneng Industrial Development Co. Ltd v. Shi. (Disclosure: one of the authors, Wenliang Zhang, acted as a legal expert and opined that the Chinese judiciary is trustworthy and complies with due process requirements.) In 2024, after prolonged proceedings, the High Court ultimately declined to accept allegations of systemic judicial bias in China and ruled in favor of enforcement. But, in a further development, the Court of Appeal allowed the case to be reopened and instructed the lower court to consider the judgment debtor’s fraud defense. The use of such a defense runs counter to the principle of non-examination of the merits of foreign judgments and undoubtedly poses additional legal obstacles to the enforcement of Chinese judgments in New Zealand.
Such arguments are new, and they reflect both desperate litigation tactics by debtors and an erosion of trust in China’s judiciary. It may be argued that such isolated cases do not change the mainstream approach to enforcing Chinese judgments in other jurisdictions. However, such troubling cases may inevitably set worrying precedents, and the resulting distrust could affect the long-term landscape of Sino-foreign judgment enforcement.
Confidence Hurdles
Current practice also shows that enforcing Chinese judgments abroad is unfamiliar to many Chinese creditors. Even as foreign courts show greater openness to recognizing Chinese judgments, these creditors remain hesitant to pursue enforcement abroad. This hesitancy partly explains the ongoing asymmetry in Sino-foreign judgment recognition. As the CJO statistics discussed above show, while foreign judgments are increasingly recognized in China, far fewer Chinese judgments are enforced overseas.
Several factors underlie Chinese creditors’ risk-aversion. China’s “recognition market” is still relatively new. Many Chinese creditors assume that enforcement must occur domestically and that, once debtors shift assets overseas, further recourse is unavailable. Only recently have several landmark cases emerged involving enforcement of Chinese judgments abroad, with Hubei Gezhouba Sanlian Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Robinson Helicopter Co. standing as a leading, early example.
Cross-border enforcement is also widely perceived within China as prohibitively expensive and unpredictable. Uncapped, hourly foreign legal fees are unfamiliar and often unacceptable to Chinese creditors, who are accustomed to the comparatively predictable cost structure of the Chinese domestic legal services market. Procedural complexity further discourages action. In common law jurisdictions, procedures such as discovery and cross-examination may be daunting. Meanwhile, many Chinese lawyers possess limited experience with foreign litigation and enforcement rules, further deterring creditors from taking action overseas.
The Outlook for Enforcing Chinese Judgments Abroad
Looking ahead, we see both promise and vulnerability. While foreign courts have shown increasing willingness to engage constructively with China’s judicial system, this openness coexists with persistent legal concerns that must be carefully managed. To secure lasting progress, the identified legal and practical barriers—particularly the emerging systemic objections and the confidence deficit among Chinese creditors—need to be addressed.
Foreign jurisdictions can play a decisive role in this process. By continuing to evaluate Chinese judgments based primarily on case-specific evidence rather than broad assumptions about the Chinese legal system, foreign courts will reinforce the reciprocal foundation on which recent advances depend. Selective or discriminatory treatment risks eroding the principle of mutual respect and reciprocity—the cornerstone of international judicial cooperation. Excessive scrutiny of Chinese judgments may unfairly burden individual litigants and ultimately discourage the enforcement of foreign judgments within China.
Arguments to the contrary notwithstanding, China has firmly established the essential guarantees of impartial adjudication and procedural fairness in its law and practice, and continues to invest substantial efforts in strengthening its position as a respected center for international commercial litigation. In an interconnected global legal order, sustainable cooperation can only be built on mutual respect for judicial processes. Only when Chinese judgments are routinely enforced abroad with confidence and consistency will the virtuous circle of reciprocity become truly self-reinforcing—benefiting creditors and courts on all sides.