This monograph of less than 10,000 words covers the establishment of maritime courts in China, jurisdiction of maritime courts, principal laws and regulations which the maritime courts apply, arrest and enforced sale of ships, maritime lawyers in China and the prospects for maritime legal proceedings in China.

There is a dearth of writing on the subject written in English. There are several reasons for this. First, there is the problem of the language. All the regulations and laws have been promulgamated in Chinese and there is no official translation. Second, it is difficult to have access to original sources materials. In fact, there are some internal regulations which are not available to the public for perusal. Third, China has not yet promulgated a comprehensive maritime code. Fourth, maritime disputes are often resolved by arbitration.

The author’s approach to the subject is largely descriptive. Occasionally he comments on provisions in certain regulations. The book is clearly written and well thought out, and can be relied upon to state the general position under Chinese law with accuracy. It is a good basic introductory text on the subject.

At the time the book was written, there were six maritime courts in China: Shanghai, Dalian, Tianjin, Qingdao, Guangzhou, and Wuhan. Since publication, two more maritime courts have been established. They are the Haikou court, which was established on 10 March 1990, and the Xiamen court, which was established on 25 March 1990. The Haikou court has jurisdiction over all ports in Hainan and Hainan waters, and Zhongsha, Nansha, and Huangyan islands and their waters. The territorial jurisdiction of the Xiamen court includes waters extending from the Fujian-Guangdong border in the South to the Fujian-Zhejiang border in the North, including the southern portion of the East China Sea, Taiwan, and various islands and all Fujian ports. Appeals from these two courts will be heard in the provincial High People’s Courts of Hainan and Fujian (Vol. IV, 6 CLP, 16 July 1990, p. 13).

There are certain weaknesses in the book. First, the writer has written very little on the nature of the burden of proof and the type of evidence admitted by the court. Second, his treatment of the respective roles of the judge and the lawyer is so superficial as tending to mislead. Judges in China are subject to the influence of party policies. Mr Ren Jianxin, the President of the Supreme People’s Court and a member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, recently said that mainland courts must accept the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and that, in addition to the law, they must abide by the policies of the party (SCMP, 5 January 1990). Furthermore, Chinese lawyers play a role which is very different from that played by an English lawyer. When performing his work, a Chinese lawyer must serve the cause of socialism and the interests of the people. This means that “he is charged with the task of advancing the contribution of the legal profession to the development of China’s material and spiritual civilization by always putting the interests of the party, the state and the people ahead of the interests of any individual client, and he is unconditionally under the leadership of the Chinese communist party, the state government and the people” (see the speech by Qiao Shih, the then Secretary-General of the Central Committee for Political and Legal Affairs, at China’s first National Conference for lawyers, reported in Nanfeng Daily, 6 July 1986). Third, the author quite capably summarizes the relevant regulations relating to maritime proceedings, but fails to discuss or include the internal regulations, if any, which are not available to the public. Fourth, the author has made no attempt to compare the law and the practice which may differ to some extent. Moreover, as the English doctrine of judicial precedent has no application in the Chinese legal system, it is thus not surprising that the book does not discuss case law. However, it is thought that in a book such