On September 23, 2020, the 2020 China Youth Arbitration Forum and the Award Ceremony of the 8th “Zhonglun Cup” National Commercial Arbitration Essay Contest (Zhonglun Cup), which was jointly initiated by China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission(CIETAC), Renmin University of China, All China Lawyers Association and Beijing Lawyers Association, was successfully held in Beijing CCOIC building. Wang Chengjie, Vice-Chairman and Secretary-General of CIETAC, Professor Wang Yi, Vice President and Dean of the Law School of Renmin University of China, Ma Jun, President of the Civil Court of Beijing Fourth Intermediate People’s Court, Zou Yonggui, Vice Secretary General of CIETAC, Cao Lijun, Secretary-General of Arbitration and Mediation Professional Committee of All China Lawyers Association, and other arbitration practitioners, researchers and essay contest winners from all over the country participated in the event.

This year’s Youth Arbitration Forum took the form of open discussion and focused on the interaction of all attendees. It was divided into two stages: the first stage included the opening ceremony, the award ceremony and round-table discussion, and the second stage focused on hot topics’ discussion. Yao Junyi, Director of the Supervision and Coordination Division of CIETAC presided over the opening ceremony.

Firstly, Wang Chengjie, Vice-chairman and Secretary-General of CIETAC, Professor Wang Yi, Vice President and Dean of the Law School of Renmin University of China and Cao Lijun, Secretary-General of Arbitration and Mediation Professional Committee of All China Lawyers Association delivered opening remarks.

Secretary-General Wang Chengjie firstly expressed his gratitude to the attendees on behalf of the organizers, and spoke highly of the extensive influence of the previous arbitration week activities as well as the large-scale and diverse activities of this year’s arbitration week. Subsequently, he briefly introduced CIETAC's innovations in arbitration system in recent years, and fully affirmed the methods of online case filing and virtual hearings during the pandemic. Finally, he called on the pioneers of arbitration to pay attention to the needs of young talents, and the young practitioners should seize opportunities to meet challenges to jointly create the new chapter in China's arbitration history.

Professor Wang Yi spoke on behalf of Renmin University of China and the Law School of Renmin University of China. He congratulated on the convening of this China Youth Arbitration Forum, and proposed that this Youth Forum was held under two special backgrounds, and therefore had extraordinary significance and value. The first important background was that the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 had accelerated the transition from industrial civilization to information civilization, and our legal system was facing unprecedented challenges. The second important background was the extensive use of the framework concepts in the "Civil Code of the People's Republic of China" which was to become effective as of January 1, 2021. The connotation and extension of these framework concepts called on a legal consensus through the practices of dispute resolution including arbitration. Professor Wang Yi also raised expectations for the young practitioners and wished the forum a success.

Secretary-General Cao Lijun first introduced the history of "Zhonglun Cup” over the past eight years, and gave examples of its role in training young arbitration talents. He hoped that the China Youth Arbitration Forum and the Arbitration Professional Committee of the National Lawyers Association could strengthen cooperation in the future so that young arbitration practitioners and young lawyers can have more exchanges. 

Then the award ceremony of the 8th "Zhonglun Cup" followed. Professor Du Huanfang, Vice Dean of the Law School of Renmin University of China, announced the winners on behalf of the organizing committee, and the representatives of winners cameto the stage to accept the award and took a photo with the guests.

After the award ceremony, Yang Liangyi, senior international arbitrator and Former Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Regional Arbitration Organization, delivered a keynote speech entitled "To Young Arbitration Practitioners". Starting from his personal experience, Yang Liangyi taught young Chinese arbitration practitioners what to learn and how to learn. Regarding the issue of what to learn, he pointed out that young arbitration practitioners should first strengthen their study, go international and provide international commercial service. Also they need to learn the contract law, the evidence law and arbitration law under common law system, learn the method of confrontation in practice, learn the method of thinking under common law, and understand the difference between Chinese law and common law. Regarding the issue of how to learn, he proposed that the first step was to lay a solid foundation, grasp sound professional knowledge; the second step was to seek opportunities to practice and exercise. He also raised high hopes for the youth, hoping that young people could grow up quickly in no more than five years.

The keynote speech session was followed by round-table discussion of this year’s Youth Arbitration Forum. The round-table discussion was moderated by Dong Xiao, Senior Arbitrator and Partner of Beijing Anjie Law Firm, under the theme of "Change and Unchanged: Innovation in Arbitration System".

Dong Xiao first shared his personal feelings, and believed that the innovation of arbitration came from three aspects: the complexity of commercial transactions, the higher requirements of arbitration users on procedures, and the demand under special circumstances. Meanwhile, he also expressed his views on the relationship between arbitration and litigation. Ma Jun, President of the Civil Court of Beijing Fourth Intermediate People’s Court, focusing on the title "Issues related to the conduct of arbitration by foreign arbitration institutions in China", shared the latest development of China's judicial authorities' support for arbitration and judicial review, starting from two topics: foreign arbitration institutions’ establishment of business offices in Mainland China and ad hoc arbitration. President Ma Jun believed that it was of great significance to actively implement the concept of judicial support for arbitration and improve the judicial support and supervision mechanism for arbitration. Dr. Wang Wenying, Secretary-General of CIETAC Hong Kong Arbitration Center, reviewed the changes and constants of CIETAC in the past, introduced the contribution that CIETAC had made to China's arbitration system, and shared with us the advanced experience and acheivements of CIETAC in going abroad. Zhang Haoliang, Director of the International Cases Division and the Business Development Division of Beijing Arbitration Commission (BAC), introduced BAC’s institutional innovation and talked about the understanding of the boundaries of arbitration services. Li Xiongfeng, Secretary of the Board of Directors of Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration, shared the "changes and constants in arbitration in the Special Zone" from the changes and constants in the governance mechanism of international arbitration institutions in the Special Zone and the recent amendments to the arbitration rules of the international arbitration institutions in the Special Zone. 

In the afternoon, the hot discussion session of the China Youth Arbitration Forum was officially opened, which was carried out under three thematic discussions.

The theme of the first discussion was "Arbitration and Ad Hoc Arbitration by Foreign Arbitration Institutions in China", with Zhao Ping, Senior Partner of Jincheng Tongda & Neal Law Firm, as the moderator and commentator. The first speaker was Yang Ling, Deputy Secretary-General of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre. She analyzed the opportunities and challenges for foreign arbitration institutions in China from the perspectives of legislative history, evolution of judicial supervision, policies of administrative authorities and attitudes of the parties. She pointed out that, while affirming the development opportunities for foreign arbitration institutions in China, it was also necessary to address development challenges by revising the Arbitration Law to implement the issue of the seat of arbitration, continuing to provide support from administrative authorities, and cooperating with domestic and foreign arbitration institutions to improve domestic arbitration environment. From the perspective of arbitrators and arbitration lawyers, Mu Di, Partner of Shanghai LLinks Law Offices, attributed the cold response received by the 2.0 policy in 2019 to misjudgments such as excessive optimism by policy makers, ignorance of the needs of the parties, and excessive risk for institutions. It was recommended that the target of assistance should be positioned as Chinese parties with a weak voice rather than foreign institutions, the policy should be positioned to compete for the right to speak, and the function should be positioned as a win-win situation for domestic and foreign arbitration institutions, and the measures should be positioned as administrative services rather than supervision. Zhang Cuyuan, Chief Representative in China of Singapore International Arbitration Centre, spoke from the standpoint of overseas arbitration institutions, and explained the requirements such as legislative update, office address, business scope, information confidentiality and transition, etc. for the establishment of an institution in China, which provided ideas for Mainland China to attract overseas arbitration institutions. From the perspective of enterprises and lawyers, Huo Wei, Partner of Beijing Zhonglun Law Firm, discussed the difficulties in judicial practices and administrative policies, challenges faced by overseas institutions in China, insufficient protection for ad hoc arbitration and low acceptability from the parties, and put forward the suggestion on joint development of institutional arbitration and ad hoc arbitration.

The theme of the second discussion was "Civil Code and Arbitration", with Song Lianbin, Professor of the International Law School of China University of Political Science and Law, as the moderator and commentator. The first speaker was Pei Yang, Professor of the Law School of Beijing Normal University. He focused on the time limitation of arbitration and the application for arbitration, saying that the time limitation of arbitration should be determined by judicial interpretation. Dai Wen, Consultant of Zhonglun Law Firm, summarized the arbitration-related clauses in the Civil Code into four categories: arbitration as a method of dispute resolution, time limitation for arbitration, arbitration institutions' judicial power and jurisdiction, and guarantee. From the perspective of arbitration law, Professor Xia Xiaohong from the Law School of Beijing Jiaotong University talked about how to understand the judicial power of arbitration institutions stipulated in the Civil Code. Hou Peng,  lawyer from Beijing King & Wood Mallesons, combined the substantive issues with arbitration practice, and discussed the changes in three aspects in "Civil Code" regarding contract withdrawal, contract cancellation and the new principle for change of circumstances.

The theme of the third discussion was "Trial from the perspective of arbitrators and attorneys", moderated by Professor Du Huanfang, Executive Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice Dean of the Law School of Renmin University of China. Ma Rongwei, General Manager of the Legal Department of Kunlun Trust, spoke from the perspective of arbitrators, proposed that the oral hearings must be established on the basis of professionalism and rationality, paying attention to the relationship between cooperation and confrontation and making full preparation for the trial, and put forward some thoughts on improving oral hearing rules. Zhu Huafang, Head of the Arbitration Practice Department of Beijing Tiantong Law Firm, sorted out the specific standards for violations of legal procedures and legal reasons in the judicial review, dismissal and non-enforcement of arbitral awards by Chinese courts, and proposed that arbitrators must guarantee the basic procedural rights of the parties in all the procedures, and attorneys must fully exercise their procedural rights. Qian Haifeng, the Youth Committee Member of National Intellectual Property and Director of China Academy of Arbitration Law, stated from his personal experience of transforming from a corporate in-house to an independent arbitrator, and expounded the requirements for arbitrators and arbitration professions with three "most". Xie Guowang, Director and Chief Partner of Beijing Jingyue Law Firm, shared the details of how should arbitrators apply procedural orders to solve the issue of time limitation and efficiency in arbitration. He further elaborated on four aspects from the perspective of efficiency, the development of procedural orders, the problems existing in the application of procedural orders, and how to use procedures.

Before the conclusion of the forum, Yao Junyi, Director of the Supervision and Coordination Division of CIETAC, made a summary speech and expressed his gratitude to the speakers of the forum, the agenda preparation group, the participants and sponsors, and spoke highly of the new highlights of the forum. He hoped that young arbitration practitioners could set long-term goals and work hard, have extensive exchanges with the professionals, make more friends, and express their opinions bravely. He also expressed his expectations that more young talents who love arbitration were welcomed to join the family of CIETAC in the future. 

This China Youth Arbitration Forum was successfully held with rich content and a lively discussion atmosphere, which not only promoted communication and exchanges in arbitration community, but also helped young talents to pay attention to and engage in arbitration, and contribute their own efforts to the development of arbitration in China.