Resolving foreign direct investment-related disputes in China’s legal system: What to expect and how to understand?

In the past decade, china has become one of the most popular destinations for foreign direct investment in the world. For resolving disputes arising from investment in china, dispute settlement mechanisms in china’s domestic legal system are indispensable. This paper offers an overview of the current domestic dispute settlement mechanisms in china’s legal system for foreign direct investment-related disputes. These mechanisms include negotiation, mediation, arbitration, complaints coordination for foreign investment, administrative review and litigation. The design of each mechanism and the features of the whole dispute resolution system resonate with the virtues presented in chinese ideology under the influence of traditional philosophies. Therefore, it is meaningful to explore the connection between the features of these mechanisms and chinese ideology, in order to better understand the underlying values that they intend to protect. At the same time, because of china’s successful operation, it is speculated that its domestic dispute settlement mechanisms for foreign direct investment-related disputes would likely have an influence on other jurisdictions in the world, which can take advantage of china’s experience but may also need to take their own legal ideologies into consideration.keywords:amicable settlementchina’s legal systemdispute settlement mechanismforeign direct investmentideologytraditional philosophy