China's Evidence Rules in Commercial Litigation: What Foreign Parties Must Prove and How

The following is general information on Chinese law, not legal advice for any specific matter. Rules and thresholds change from time to time, and the treatment of any transaction depends on its structure and the parties; consult qualified PRC counsel before acting.

The framework: the Civil Procedure Law and the 2019 evidence rules

Evidence in a Chinese commercial case is governed by two instruments that foreign parties consistently underestimate. The first is the Civil Procedure Law (民事诉讼法), as amended in 2023 and effective 1 January 2024, whose Article 66 lists the categories of evidence and expressly includes electronic data. The second is the Supreme People's Court's Provisions on Evidence in Civil Proceedings (法释〔2019〕19号), effective 1 May 2020, which supplies the working detail: what counts as electronic data, how authenticity is assessed, how probative force is weighed, and — critically for foreign litigants — how documents formed outside China must be handled. A foreign party that prepares its case on the assumptions of its home jurisdiction, without reading these rules, typically discovers at the evidentiary stage that its best evidence is inadmissible or carries no weight.

Electronic data: what it is and how it is authenticated

Chinese commercial disputes are increasingly decided on electronic data — WeChat records, email, and platform data — and the evidence rules address it directly. Article 14 of the 2019 provisions defines the scope of electronic data, which includes information in emails, electronic data interchange, online chat records, blog and microblog content, SMS, electronic signatures and documents stored on electronic media. Articles 93 and 94 then govern authenticity: the court examines factors such as the integrity of the generation, storage and transmission of the data, and — importantly for a foreign party — Article 94 lists circumstances in which the court may presume the authenticity of electronic data, including data provided by a neutral third-party platform or data the opposing party has kept and failed to challenge. The practical lesson is to preserve the original devices and the underlying account records, and to present electronic evidence through a chain that a court can verify, not a screenshot with no provenance.

Admissions and the burden of proof

Two doctrines shape how hard a case is to win. The first is admission: Article 3 and the provisions that follow recognise that a party's express or deemed admission of a fact relieves the other side of proving it — which is why careless statements in correspondence, or a failure to deny a fact when it is squarely put, can become findings against you. The second is the burden of proof: Article 91 assigns the burden to the party asserting the existence of a fact, subject to the specific allocations in the substantive law. For a foreign claimant, this means the claim has to be built from documents that carry weight — signed contracts, payment records, delivery evidence — rather than from narrative. The party that controls the better paper controls the outcome, and the rules are unforgiving of a claim that rests on assertion.

Documents formed outside China: the authentication question

The rule foreign parties trip on most is Article 16 of the evidence provisions: a public document formed outside China must be authenticated. The mechanics changed on 7 November 2023, when the Apostille Convention took effect for China — so between China and another contracting state, a foreign public document is authenticated by an apostille, replacing the older notarisation-plus-consular-legalisation chain; documents for identity-status matters may still require additional steps under the applicable rules or treaty. Non-contracting states follow the notarisation and legalisation route. Private documents and commercial correspondence generally do not require apostille, but their authenticity still has to be established if challenged. The practical discipline is to assemble foreign documentary evidence with the correct authentication from the start, because re-doing it mid-case costs the very time a limitation period may not allow.

Evidence preservation: securing the record before it changes

Because so much commercial evidence is electronic and mutable, Chinese procedure provides for evidence preservation — before or during the proceedings — through a court application, and in practice also through notarial preservation of web pages, chat records and platform data. A party that waits until after the counterparty has deleted the WeChat thread or taken the webpage down has lost the evidence, not the argument. For a foreign party, the disciplined approach is to notarise the key records as soon as a dispute appears likely, and to apply for preservation where the evidence sits on a system the other side controls.

A checklist for a foreign party preparing evidence

• Map the categories early against Article 66 and Article 14, and identify what is electronic data.
• Preserve originals and provenance — devices, accounts, headers and metadata — not screenshots alone.
• Authenticate foreign public documents — apostille between contracting states, notarisation and legalisation otherwise.
• Mind admissions — what you write, and what you fail to deny, can bind you.
• Notarise and preserve electronic evidence the moment a dispute is foreseeable.

The rules summarised here are current as of the date of writing; the Civil Procedure Law and the evidence provisions are subject to the latest amendments and judicial interpretations. See also our guide to contract disputes in China.