Registration is required for the public and CU affiliates outside of the Law School to access William and June Warren Hall. Please register by 8 pm on the day before the event. REGISTER
Despite escalating geopolitical rivalry, the US and China continue to be economically intertwined. Numerous Chinese companies have made substantial investments in the US and are reluctant to exit this strategically important market. While the global expansion of Chinese companies has ignited intense policy and academic debates, their interactions with complex host-state legal systems have largely escaped systematic examination. To fill this knowledge gap, Negotiating Legality introduces a dual institutional framework and applies it to analyzing extensive interviews and multi-year survey data, thereby shedding light on how Chinese companies develop in-house legal capacities, engage with US legal professionals, and navigate litigation in US courts. As the first comprehensive investigation of these crucial topics, this book is indispensable for anyone interested in China's rise, its global impacts-especially on legal systems of developed nations like the US-and the intricate dynamics of US-China relations.
About the Speaker
Professor Ji Li joined UCI Law in July 2019 as the John S. and Marilyn Long Professor of U.S.-China Business and Law. Prior to this appointment, he was a Professor of Law and a Zhuang Zhou Scholar at Rutgers University, where he also served as a member of the Associate Faculty of the Division of Global Affairs.
Professor Li’s teaching and scholarship cover a broad range of topics, including Chinese law and politics, international business transactions, contracts, comparative law, and empirical legal studies. He has published two books with Cambridge University Press: Negotiating Legality (2024) and Clash of Capitalisms (2018), both of which examine how Chinese multinational companies, including those owned by the Chinese state, adapt to U.S. legal and regulatory institutions. During the 2018-2019 academic year, Professor Li was in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is currently working on two book projects that investigate the interactions between China and the international legal order, as well as the ways transnational legal actors are coping with the U.S.-China geopolitical rivalry.
Professor Li received his Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an Olin Fellow in Law, Economics, and Public Policy. After law school, he worked for several years at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York.
Registration is required for the public and CU affiliates outside of the Law School to access William and June Warren Hall. Please register by 8 pm on the day before the event. REGISTER
