• Home
  • Politics
  • Health
  • World
  • Business
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • More
    • Sports
    • Entertainment
    • Lifestyle
What's Hot

Trump Announces First Post-Tariff Trade Deal

May 8, 2025

100 Funny Father’s Day Quotes for Hilariously Relatable Humor (and Plenty of Love Too)

May 8, 2025

Top 10 Benefits Of Acupuncture

May 8, 2025
Facebook Twitter Instagram
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
Thursday, May 8
Patriot Now NewsPatriot Now News
  • Home
  • Politics

    Security video shows brazen sexual assault of California woman by homeless man

    October 24, 2023

    Woman makes disturbing discovery after her boyfriend chases away home intruder who stabbed him

    October 24, 2023

    Poll finds Americans overwhelmingly support Israel’s war on Hamas, but younger Americans defend Hamas

    October 24, 2023

    Off-duty pilot charged with 83 counts of attempted murder after allegedly trying to shut off engines midflight on Alaska Airlines

    October 23, 2023

    Leaked audio of Shelia Jackson Lee abusively cursing staffer

    October 22, 2023
  • Health

    Disparities In Cataract Care Are A Sorry Sight

    October 16, 2023

    Vaccine Stocks—Including Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech And Novavax—Slide Amid Plummeting Demand

    October 16, 2023

    Long-term steroid use should be a last resort

    October 16, 2023

    Rite Aid Files For Bankruptcy With More ‘Underperforming Stores’ To Close

    October 16, 2023

    Who’s Still Dying From Complications Related To Covid-19?

    October 16, 2023
  • World

    New York Democrat Dan Goldman Accuses ‘Conservatives in the South’ of Holding Rallies with ‘Swastikas’

    October 13, 2023

    IDF Ret. Major General Describes Rushing to Save Son, Granddaughter During Hamas Invasion

    October 13, 2023

    Black Lives Matter Group Deletes Tweet Showing Support for Hamas 

    October 13, 2023

    AOC Denounces NYC Rally Cheering Hamas Terrorism: ‘Unacceptable’

    October 13, 2023

    L.A. Prosecutors Call Out Soros-Backed Gascón for Silence on Israel

    October 13, 2023
  • Business

    Trump Announces First Post-Tariff Trade Deal

    May 8, 2025

    Electric Vehicle Sales Nosedive As GOP Takes Buzzsaw To Biden’s Mandate

    May 7, 2025

    Tyson Foods Announces It Will Bend The Knee To Trump Admin’s New Rules

    May 7, 2025

    Federal Reserve Holds Interest Rates Steady Despite Pressure From Trump

    May 7, 2025

    ‘Wait Them Out’: John Kennedy Tells Larry Kudlow One Lie He Suspects China’s Telling US

    May 7, 2025
  • Finance

    Ending China’s De Minimis Exception Brings 3 Benefits for Americans

    April 17, 2025

    The Trump Tariff Shock Should Push Indonesia to Reform Its Economy

    April 17, 2025

    Tariff Talks an Opportunity to Reinvigorate the Japan-US Alliance

    April 17, 2025

    How China’s Companies Are Responding to the US Trade War

    April 16, 2025

    The US Flip-flop Over H20 Chip Restrictions 

    April 16, 2025
  • Tech

    Cruz Confronts Zuckerberg on Pointless Warning for Child Porn Searches

    February 2, 2024

    FTX Abandons Plans to Relaunch Crypto Exchange, Commits to Full Repayment of Customers and Creditors

    February 2, 2024

    Elon Musk Proposes Tesla Reincorporates in Texas After Delaware Judge Voids Pay Package

    February 2, 2024

    Tesla’s Elon Musk Tops Disney’s Bob Iger as Most Overrated Chief Executive

    February 2, 2024

    Mark Zuckerberg’s Wealth Grew $84 Billion in 2023 as Pedophiles Target Children on Facebook, Instagram

    February 2, 2024
  • More
    • Sports
    • Entertainment
    • Lifestyle
Patriot Now NewsPatriot Now News
Home»Finance»In China, Lawyers Don’t Need to Keep Your Secrets
Finance

In China, Lawyers Don’t Need to Keep Your Secrets

March 2, 2023No Comments5 Mins Read
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
In China, Lawyers Don’t Need to Keep Your Secrets
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email
Advertisement

China has become, in the space of three decades, the world’s second largest economy. Along he way, China’s share of global GDP grew from a 1.61 percent in 1990 to 17.51 percent in 2020. China attracted 23.25 percent of the world’s foreign direct investment in 2020; its exports accounted for 12.72 percent of all world exports.

These dry statistics reflect the creation and growth of a dynamic economy, but also serve to hide underlying issues. China’s legal system is fraught with insufficiencies and a woeful lack of protections for either individual or business interests. Nowhere can that better be seen than in the relationship between an attorney and client in China.

Indeed, China has no attorney-client privilege. Put another way, the sacrosanct bond between attorney and client, which much of the rest of the world takes for granted, not only does not exist in China but is seen as a potential risk to the interests of the state – which in China of course also means to the interests of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

China has gotten away with building a legal system that pacifies foreign investors and buyers despite the fact that it does little more than create a cozy but artificial comfort zone for those who seek the trust and confidentiality of a lawyer. Indeed, hiring a Chinese law firm gives the decisions and actions of foreign executives in China plausibility back home. The concerns of boards of directors and management at headquarters overseas are assuaged by knowing that their Chinese legal team has reviewed a particular situation, approved the language in a contract, or successfully obtained a Chinese trademark based on the lawyer’s sophisticated understanding of the requirements of the Chinese bureaucracy.  

See also  Apple Stock Drops As iPhone Maker's Sales Decline Again

Few understand – or would believe – that everything involved to complete legal transactions is available to both authorities and competitors if the Chinese lawyer is either so compelled or finds it in her interest to make it so. 

Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.

Some foreign lawyers in China, who by definition are forbidden from practicing law in the country, have been open about this gaping hole in China’s legal protections. American attorney Fred Rocafort in 2019 wrote in a blog for law firm Harris Bricken that “China does not have an attorney-client privilege.”

Rocafort cites another American lawyer, Brad Luo, who had several years prior written that “China’s ethical rules for lawyers have a ‘bright line’ rule forbidding them from representing both sides in the same conflict, but go little beyond that.” Luo explained that China does not require lawyers to remain loyal to former clients, therefore allowing them to turn on them “without offending any ethical duty of confidentiality” to either the old client or the new client. Rocafort offers some examples: “Perhaps your Chinese lawyer has another client who would just love to take a look at that new patent application of yours. Perhaps your Chinese law firm stands to benefit by tipping off your competitor before it files your trademark application – we have many times heard of this happening.”

Both Luo and Rocafort come to the conclusion that “if I were a client, I’d hesitate talking about certain things with my Chinese lawyer.”

See also  Trump’s Lawyers Argue Against Cameras At Arraignment, Say They’ll Create ‘A Circus-Like Atmosphere’
Advertisement

The legal standard of privacy and confidentiality in China is so removed from most international standards of law that many clients will scoff at suggestions to the contrary. I myself have had projects in which I have warned skeptical international companies to be careful and selective about what they divulge to Chinese lawyers, as their information is not protected by either the lawyer or the legal system. Even when a Chinese lawyer is sincere and trustworthy, he or she may not have any choice but to give up information on a foreign company and its interests in China to government or party figures who demand that information. 

Chinese law is deliberate about this. All interests ultimately bow to the state, not to the individual, the corporation, or the company. One cannot have attorney-client privilege in a state in which all information is considered fair game for the state to possess.

China, like most authoritarian countries, puts a large umbrella over any information potentially affecting or harming national security. Nominally, therefore, although a Chinese lawyer is supposed to protect their clients’ trade secrets, if that trade secret includes, for example, a technology design that the Chinese government designates as a matter affecting its national security, then it is a secret no longer. The information will be duly processed and put into the pipeline for analysis and, if found useful, adoption by the Chinese state. The foreign company will usually never suspect that their lawyer was responsible for the loss of its intellectual property and the rights that go with it.  

See also  Explainer-Why is France raiding a graphics card company?

Thus China’s legal system is left offering the international community the window-dressing of something familiar – with almost none of the substance that veneer implies. In the final analysis, the absence of enforced and enforceable protections, privacy, and confidentiality for a client with a lawyer in China is another one of those “whole of nation” mechanisms used to help the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) steal from foreign companies – and become the world’s number two economy in the process. And that’s why it matters. 

China Dont Lawyers Secrets
Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email

Related Posts

Trump’s Tariffs Trigger Turmoil In China As Country’s Economic Tailspin Intensifies Per New Data

May 6, 2025

American Manufacturers Overwhelmed With Orders After Trump’s Tariff Crackdown On China

May 5, 2025

Trump Closes Tariff Loophole That Let China Flood America With Knockoff Goods, Drugs

May 2, 2025

China Erupts: Furious Workers Riot As Factories Collapse Under Trump’s Tariffs

May 1, 2025
Add A Comment

Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

Top Posts

Chelsea Mitchell, ‘The Fastest Girl in Connecticut,’ Sues State to Keep Males Out of Girls’ Sports

June 2, 2023

Federal Civil Rights Investigation Opened into Antisemitism at Harvard

December 1, 2023

How To Keep Skin Hydrated in Winter, From Experts| Well+Good

December 13, 2023

With Wagner’s Future Uncertain, Concerns Grow of Cubans Expanding Presence in Ukraine

August 28, 2023
Don't Miss

Trump Announces First Post-Tariff Trade Deal

Business May 8, 2025

President Donald Trump announced Thursday the U.S. has reached a trade agreement with the U.K.,…

100 Funny Father’s Day Quotes for Hilariously Relatable Humor (and Plenty of Love Too)

May 8, 2025

Top 10 Benefits Of Acupuncture

May 8, 2025

Electric Vehicle Sales Nosedive As GOP Takes Buzzsaw To Biden’s Mandate

May 7, 2025
About
About

This is your World, Tech, Health, Entertainment and Sports website. We provide the latest breaking news straight from the News industry.

We're social. Connect with us:

Facebook Twitter Instagram Pinterest
Categories
  • Business (4,110)
  • Entertainment (4,220)
  • Finance (3,202)
  • Health (1,938)
  • Lifestyle (1,626)
  • Politics (3,084)
  • Sports (4,036)
  • Tech (2,006)
  • Uncategorized (4)
  • World (3,944)
Our Picks

3M Rallies, Is Disney For Sale?

July 11, 2023

Gideon Khobane Joins Amazon as Director for Prime Video Africa

July 3, 2023

ESPN Enters Sports Gambling in $2 Billion Deal With Casino Company

August 9, 2023
Popular Posts

Trump Announces First Post-Tariff Trade Deal

May 8, 2025

100 Funny Father’s Day Quotes for Hilariously Relatable Humor (and Plenty of Love Too)

May 8, 2025

Top 10 Benefits Of Acupuncture

May 8, 2025
© 2025 Patriotnownews.com - All rights reserved.
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.