Understanding China's interaction with transnational legal ordering is essential for understanding both legal change within China and developments in public and private international law and global governance. This edited volume develops and applies a systematic analytic framework for explaining China's engagement with international and transnational legal ordering by disaggregating the Chinese state. It examines how diverse state and non-state actors within China-government agencies, businesses, lawyers, legal scholars, and civil society organizations-shape its participation in transnational legal processes.
The book shows how different Chinese actors, operating with varying interests and ideational frames in different institutional settings have selectively internalized, adapted, resisted, and reinterpreted transnational legal norms over time across domains such as trade, investment, human rights, data governance, and other areas. Through detailed case studies, the volume demonstrates that China is neither simply a rule-taker nor a rule-breaker but a complex and evolving participant in transnational legal ordering.
