State Council issued “Several Opinions on Improving the Arbitration System to Strengthen the Credibility of Arbitration” (关于完善仲裁制度提高仲裁公信力的若干意见, hereinafter referred to as “the Opinions”) on 31 December, 2018, which is the first time that the Chinese government has made a systematic plan specifically for the development of arbitration in the past 20 years.

The Opinions requires that the arbitration committee shall be independent of the administrative organ and has no affiliation with the administrative organ. The arbitration committee shall not be regarded as an internal institution or a subordinate of any government department; the Communist Party of China, the government and their leaders or cadres shall support the arbitration committee to independently conduct arbitration in accordance with the law. They shall not interfere with the arbitral award and shall not interfere in the daily operation of the arbitration committee; if these leaders or cadres intervene in the arbitral award or intervene in the handling of specific cases, the arbitration institution shall record these acts and the supervisory authority shall investigate their liabilities.