Unpacking the Practices, Challenges, and Implications of China's Cultivation of Foreign-Related Rule of Law Talent

As China deepens its global integration and pursues higher-level opening-up, the cultivation of foreign-related rule of law talent has emerged as a strategic priority with profound implications for the nation’s capacity to participate in international legal affairs and protect its overseas interests. This study conducts a systematic analysis of 79 CSSCI papers published between 2015 and 2025, treating this scholarly corpus as primary data to document how Chinese institutions cultivate foreign-related legal talent in practice. The analysis reveals a landscape characterized by considerable experimentation and diversity, with institutions developing various cultivation models ranging from dual-degree programs combining law and foreign languages to practice-oriented approaches emphasizing international legal clinics and moot court competitions. However, the findings also expose persistent, structurally-rooted challenges that span faculty capacity limitations, difficulties in theory-practice integration, resource disparities across regions and institutions, and assessment system inadequacies. These challenges appear rooted not in isolated implementation failures but in deeper systemic factors, including institutional incentive structures, coordination complexities across multiple stakeholders, and fundamental tensions inherent in professional education reform. Therefore, the study contributes to a comparative understanding of legal education transformation in emerging economies by providing evidence-based documentation of China’s distinctive approach to cultivating internationally-oriented legal professionals. The implications extend beyond China’s cases, offering insights for other jurisdictions facing similar challenges in preparing legal professionals for an increasingly transnational practice environment.