Published: 11:00am, 12 Jul 2025Updated: 11:32am, 12 Jul 2025
Chinese lawyers are making inroads into the global legal services market in response to growing demand from their compatriots abroad and a push from Beijing.
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They say that as more Chinese companies expand their footprint overseas, many prefer to get legal support from Chinese lawyers and have more trust in them, but winning over clients from elsewhere is a challenge at a time of rising geopolitical tensions.
Beijing has been pressing for more legal professionals to offer their services abroad to protect Chinese assets as its mega trade and investment strategy the Belt and Road Initiative marches into a second decade.
As of last year, Chinese law firms had established some 207 offices overseas – more than 35 per cent of them located in countries involved in the belt and road strategy, the Ministry of Justice said in April.
That marked an increase of 70 per cent from 2018, when there were 122 Chinese legal offices abroad.
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“Lawyers play an important role in supporting Chinese companies in their global expansion and it’s essential for us to stay attuned in these changing times and to respond proactively,” said Liu Zhiqiang, a lawyer and executive director of Yingke Law Firm’s office in Budapest, Hungary.