University of Helsinki
Featured researcher: Associate Professor Xie Zengyi
XIE Zengyi is Associate Professor of Law in the Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), specializing in labour, corporate and comparative law.
Associate Professor Xie is collaborating with the Finnish Center of Chinese Law and Chinese Legal Culture on two Academy of Finland-funded projects. In the first project, ‘ILO Core Labour Standards Implementation in China: Legal Architecture and Cultural Logic’, he is investigating the development of different labour law systems and their institutional components in China. In the second project, ‘Employee Participation and Collective Bargaining in the Era of Globalization – Nordic and Chinese Perspectives’, he is researching the employee participation system in China, the role of trade unions, and comparing the Chinese and European employee participation systems.
Associate Professor Xie is also Director of the Department of Research Administration and International Cooperation in CASS. In this capacity he has played a key role in strengthening the mutual co-operation between the Center and the CASS. In particular, he devoted much time and effort in supporting the annual Sino-Finnish International Seminar on Comparative Law, which has been held five times and has resulted in two books.
The seminar, Xie says, ‘is proving to be an excellent platform for exchange and cooperation between the Chinese and Finnish legal communities.’ While the bilateral seminar involves collaboration between senior legal professors from China and Finland, one of Xie’s initiatives has been an enhanced role for younger researchers in the seminar. This, he believes, will best facilitate the long-term sharing of legal knowledge and building of relationships between China and Finland.
Xie’s current research into anti-discrimination, non-standard employment, employee participation and other challenging areas of labour law, he hopes, will not only lead to new insights between the legal systems of Finland and China. It will also promote one of his legal interests: the rule of law. ‘The rule of law is an emerging topic in China, notwithstanding the progress that has been made so far’, he says. ‘Cooperation between Finland and China will help China in continuing its implementation of rule of law principles and ideas.’
In addition to rule of law issues, Xie says mutual understanding and legal exchange between Finland and China is essential for commercial and economic reasons. China and Finland, he says, have much to offer each other. ‘As China continues its transition to a market economy it can learn from Finland’s experience in developing its economy’. This is especially the case, he notes, given the significant and diversifying bilateral trade between Finland and China.
He points out that in addition to large companies such as Nokia and Kone in China, there is broader and growing grassroots corporate engagement between the two countries. To promote such commercial engagement, businesses in both Finland and China need to properly understand not only the laws of both countries, but also the respective legal cultures.
Although he has traveled multiple times to Finland to participate in conferences and meetings, and is currently living in Helsinki and working as a Visiting Scholar in Center, he is still challenged by the Finnish winter. Thankfully, he says, the cold weather has been off-set by the warmth and hospitality of his Finnish friends, colleagues and other locals he has met. ‘And I’ve come to appreciate the beauty of the Finnish winter’, he notes.
Professor Xie’s latest publication relates to anti-discrimination in Chinese workplaces, and will appear as a chapter in the first book to be published by the Center and edited by Professor Liukkunen and Dr Yifeng Chen, ‘China and ILO Fundamental Principles and Rights in Work’ (Kluwer, forthcoming 2013).
Author: Stuart Mooney