A supplier review system can play a significant role in ensuring the enforcement of procurement rules through its deterrent and redress effects. This thesis aims at providing a critical analysis of the current Chinese supplier review system and identifying and evaluating options for improvement of the Chinese system, based on the analysis of provisions on supplier review contained in the UNCITRAL Model Law on Procurement, the GPA, the EU Remedies Directives and APEC Non-Binding Principles on Government Procurement. This thesis first discusses key characteristics of national supplier review system, concerning forum for review, standing and procedures, and the remedies, provided in the Model Law and the other three international instruments; and then examines these main aspects of the current Chinese supplier review system. After critically analysing the current Chinese system, it has been found there are a number of important deficiencies in this system, in particular, there is uncertainty over the forum for review, the whole dispute resolution process can be quite lengthy and the available remedies are ineffective. These problems have hampered the effectiveness of the system and made it inconsistent with the international standards which may soon apply or currently actually apply to China, namely the GPA and APEC NBPs. To make the Chinese supplier review system truly effective and also comply with the existing/forthcoming international obligations, the author recommends reforms that aim to be effective yet capable of realistic achievement and also workable in the particular context of Chinese circumstances and the existing position in China. These include providing a unified supplier review system to all complaints regarding government procurement process, improving the current sequential tiered review system, revising the current provisions on standing and the time limit for initiation, offering clear rules on remedies and deleting unreasonable sanctions on the complaining supplier.

After more than three decades of legal reform under a promotion of the rule of law, it is opportune to assess and conceptualize the relationship between the legal reform and protection of human rights in China. The rule of law in China has been subjected to much controversy and debate. There are views that China at best desires and practices a rule by law under which the protection of human rights is a far-fetch goal. What further complicates the matter is that China’s legal reform is arriving at “crossroads” as it has exhausted most of the easy part of the reform. Legal reform today faces more difficulty in trying to accommodate and prioritize conflicting values and interests. This thesis aims to explore whether China’s legal reform towards the rule of law promote the protection of human rights. Using the distinction of thin and thick versions of rule of law, it is argued that the party-state aims to establish a Chinese rule of law integrating many basic standards of a thin rule of law. After decades of intensive reform many areas of law have incorporated certain principles of the thin rule of law. This process led to the advancement of human rights protection and rise of rights-consciousness. However, as the reform increasingly concerns more complicated issues that goes beyond “thin” solutions, the thesis argues that the conception of human rights come to play an important role in the decision-making.

State capitalism, which refers to an economic system wherein the state maintains a guiding role in the economy based on the functioning of a market mechanism that is instrumental to the state, has experienced a rapid proliferation during recent decades. As a typical example of a state capitalist country, China has developed a highly institutionalised economic system characterised by a deep integration between the state and the market. This thesis aims to answer the questions as to how and why the rise of Chinese state capitalism has challenged the existing international economic order. It begins with an exploration of the ways in which Chinese state capitalism functions, submitting that the state simultaneously fulfils a triple role when intervening in the market, namely that of a planner, competitor, and a regulator. This research then doctrinally analyses the legal instruments adopted by China to advance its state capitalist practice, through which it argues that, compared to public law, private law has assumed greater importance in underpinning Chinese state capitalism. Next, by exploring both the world trading system and the international investment regime, the thesis contends that the international economic order has a limited ability to properly respond to the development of China’s state capitalism. The reason behind the limitation results from a failure to understand China’s contemporary state capitalism as an economic model that transcends the traditional market-state paradigm long-held by orthodox capitalism.