China’s one-child policy (“OCP”) exacerbates the existing weaknesses within the country’s pension system.1 This strict family planning measure is the root cause of sub-replacement fertility and rising dependency ratios within the country. Consequently, the one-child policy should not coexist with the nation’s currently under-funded retirement security program. In order to avert an impending financial and social crisis, the Chinese government should immediately confront the issue of pension reform. However, designs to improve the retirement security framework cannot be successfully instituted unless, as an initial step, the one-child policy is relaxed. The focal point of this paper delves into the impracticality of the one-child policy in relation to China’s pension reform efforts.

In view of the increasingly severe exploitation of minority shareholders and the existence of double agency costs in China, it is necessary to provide strong protection for minority shareholders in China in order to build an investor-friendly system. By enabling minority shareholders to prevent misconducts of majority shareholders and managers, legal system has made significant progress in the past twenty years. Nevertheless, many defects still exist. The first enactment of the PRC Company Law was passed in 1992 with primary goal to serve reform of state-owned enterprises and therefore protection for minority shareholders was excluded by the scope of these reforms. The revision of the Company Law in 2005 was regarded as historical progress of Chinese company law in respect of providing protection for minority shareholders as many rights are conferred on shareholders and more measures were adopted to restrain the power of directors and controlling shareholders. However, this paper identifies that these various rights and protective mechanisms have certain deficiencies, which means that the interests of minority shareholders suppose to be guaranteed would be inevitably affected. Without improvements and clarifications of the existing legal protection in the future, interests of shareholders and company as a whole will be obstructed ultimately and development of capital markets will be significantly impeded.

To condemn a conglomerate merger for the foreclosure effect of post-merger activities, one should examine the anticipated conduct against the same liability rules under the law of agreement and the law of abuse of dominance as if the conduct has been materialized. Given the inherent uncertainty of pre-merger assessment, it requires a high standard of proof to satisfy the adjudicator that the merger in question would lead to anticompetitive effect in all the circumstances. Conglomerate merger, which will reinforce market concentration or increase entry barriers, should be stringently scrutinized. Saying so, the pro-efficiency effects of conglomerate merger are appreciated. One should not take it for granted that agglomeration will be restrained through conglomerate merger control.

Chemicals, due to their combustible, explosive, toxic characteristics and aptness to jeopardize the environment, human health and public safety, have long been on the top agenda of the governments throughout the world. At present China is a large country in the production, consumption and trading of chemicals with 45, 000 kinds already manufactured and in use and some 100 new kinds per year awaiting being registered to enter into the markets.1 Generally, the chemicals management in China has undergone through labor protection between 1950s and 1960s, pollution control and public safety during 1970s and 1980s, and ozone protection, climate change, recycling economy and anti-terrorism in recent decades. The focus of the legislation on chemicals has shifted from separate and scattered regulations in the form of departmental rules to national regulations which give special attention to the coordination of concerned departments and to the linkup and compatibility with relevant international treaties. In a word, chemicals management has become one of the sectors in China’s environmental management domains where there are a large number of stringent regulations.

This paper discusses the concept of burden of proof and prima facie case, respectively, in WTO dispute settlement based on the legal doctrine on burden of proof in Chinese law. From the perspective of Chinese law, the burden of proof has three implications on two levels, namely the behavior burden of production and the behavior burden of persuasion in the procedural sense, and the result burden of bearing unfavorable consequence in its substantive sense. A prima facie case also includes the weaker account and the stricter account. They do not mean the same in different contexts, but what is the exact meaning thereof in a given context is clear. The real confusion of the burden of proof in WTO dispute settlement is prima facie standard which, in practice, to some extent, relies on the determination by the panel on case-to-case basis.

China has participated in the WTO for ten years. It can be divided into two stages, which have different features for the first five years and the second five years. As China has become the new emerging power in the WTO, many comments have focused on its participation in the WTO, especially its practice in the DSM. China, as a new member in the WTO, is not very aggressive, and all the challenges and issues to be settled largely depend on its participation capacity in the WTO.

Harmful alien invasive species transported by ballast water is considered as a significant threat to marine environment. IMO has adopted the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments in 2004 which has not yet come into force. The convention is important for the control and management of ballast water and sediments. Before its entry into force, state responsibilities required under other conventions will help reduce the risk resulting from the spread of harmful alien invasive species carried by ballast water. This paper will discuss the threats of ships’ ballast water on marine ecological safety at first, and then analyze the nature of harmful alien invasive species, the state’s prevention obligation will be expounded thereafter, and finally conclude the contents, challenges and defects of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments of 2004.

When President Obama signed “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,” the US financial regulatory reform was basically outlined. This paper focuses on the evaluation of this reform with regard to the “Eye of the Storm” of the subprime crisis and summarizes the main contents of the bill. Studies suggest that this is a successful financial regulatory reform and the widest range of financial regulatory reform since the last century’s “Great Depression,” in that the bill has established a new framework of risk management with the characteristic of mixed regulation.