Enforcing Foreign Court Judgments in China: 2024 Rules

A judgment from a court in London, Frankfurt or Singapore is only worth as much as its enforceability against assets in China. For years that enforceability was governed by a thin statutory framework and a conservative reciprocity practice that made recognition of a foreign money judgment the exception rather than the rule. That changed on 1 January 2024, when the latest amendment to the PRC Civil Procedure Law (民事诉讼法), adopted by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on 1 September 2023, took effect and — for the first time — set out a complete, five-ground regime in Articles 298 to 303. The practical effect has been a slow but real opening of the door, and the case law since 2022 shows the courts are willing to walk through it.

The statutory framework: Articles 298 to 303

Article 298 states the two entry routes: a party may apply directly to a competent intermediate people's court, or a foreign court may make the request under a treaty or on the basis of reciprocity. Article 299 supplies the recognition standard — the court recognises and enforces the judgment if doing so does not violate the basic principles of Chinese law or harm national sovereignty, security or the social and public interest, and issues an enforcement order where enforcement is sought. The four articles that follow are new, and they are the heart of the reform.

The five grounds for refusal

Article 300 codifies, in one place, the circumstances in which recognition and enforcement will be refused:

• the foreign court had no jurisdiction over the matter, as determined under Article 301;
• the respondent was not lawfully summoned, was denied a reasonable opportunity to present its case, or — where a party lacked litigation capacity — was not properly represented;
• the judgment was obtained by fraud;
• a Chinese court has already rendered a judgment or ruling on the same dispute, or China has already recognised a third-country judgment on the same dispute; and
• the judgment violates the basic principles of Chinese law or harms national sovereignty, security or the social and public interest.

Article 301 defines what "no jurisdiction" means: the foreign court lacked jurisdiction under its own law or lacked a proper connection to the dispute; the case falls within China's exclusive jurisdiction; or the judgment contravenes an exclusive forum-selection agreement between the parties. Article 302 separately handles parallel proceedings — where the same dispute is pending before a Chinese court, that court may suspend its own action; if recognition is granted the suspended action is dismissed, and if recognition is refused it resumes. Article 303 gives a party ten days from service of the ruling to apply for reconsideration (复议) to the next higher court.

Reciprocity: from factual to presumptive

The single most consequential development is doctrinal. Historically Chinese courts applied "factual reciprocity" (事实互惠): a foreign judgment would be recognised only if the foreign country had already recognised a Chinese judgment, which in practice meant almost never. The pivot began with the Nanning Statement, adopted at the Second China–ASEAN Justice Forum in Nanning on 8 June 2017, whose seventh consensus endorsed "presumptive reciprocity" (推定互惠) — where the other country has no record of refusing to recognise Chinese judgments on reciprocity grounds, reciprocity is presumed. A further signal came with the China–Singapore Memorandum of Guidance on Recognition and Enforcement of Money Judgments in Commercial Cases, signed on 31 August 2018.

The doctrine then moved into the case law. In the 2022 SPAR Shipping case, the Shanghai Maritime Court recognised a judgment of the English High Court on the basis of reciprocity in the absence of any China–UK treaty — a widely cited example of the shift from de facto to legal reciprocity. In 2024, a court in Nanning recognised the first Thai judgment, expressly relying on the Nanning Statement's presumptive-reciprocity principle. The trajectory is clear: reciprocity is no longer a bar by default, but a presumption the respondent must displace.

Which countries' judgments are easiest: the treaty map

China has bilateral civil and commercial judicial-assistance treaties with about 37 countries, of which roughly 34 include provisions on the recognition and enforcement of judgments. The map has sharp edges that are easy to get wrong:

• Treaty coverage exists with, among others, France, Russia, Italy, Spain, Poland, the UAE (under a 2004 agreement that expressly covers judgments), Brazil, Argentina and several Central Asian and Southeast Asian states.
• Singapore is partial: the 1997 China–Singapore judicial-assistance treaty does not cover judgments; recognition instead rests on the 2018 Memorandum of Guidance plus reciprocity.
• Korea is absent: the 2003 China–ROK treaty covers service, evidence and arbitral awards only, with no judgment-recognition provisions — a structural gap filled only by reciprocity under Article 299.

China has not acceded to the 2019 Hague Judgments Convention. Confirm the current status against the Ministry of Foreign Affairs treaty database before relying on any bilateral route, as accession and treaty practice move.

Procedure and timing

The application is made to the intermediate people's court at the respondent's domicile or where the respondent's property is located, and is heard by a collegial panel. The respondent may submit observations within 15 days — 30 days if it has no domicile in China — and may raise a jurisdiction objection within the same period. Reciprocity-based cases are subject to an internal reporting-and-approval mechanism before a ruling is issued. Three fixed periods matter most in practice: the two-year period for applying for execution, the 15/30-day window for the respondent's observations, and the ten-day window for reconsideration under Article 303. There is no statutory two-month review deadline for foreign-judgment recognition; a two-month figure belongs to a different regime, so do not plan around it.

The strategic implication is that a foreign judgment is now a genuinely usable asset against Chinese-held assets, provided the route is chosen carefully: a treaty where one exists, presumptive reciprocity where it does not, and an eye on the five refusal grounds from the moment the foreign litigation begins. Our note on enforcing foreign arbitral awards in China covers the parallel Convention route, and our guide to forum-selection and jurisdiction clauses explains how the choice of court at the drafting stage determines which of these routes is available later. Our dispute resolution team advises clients on both sides of the enforcement line.