On the afternoon of April 16, 2026, an academic lecture entitled "Revision of the Foreign Trade Law of the People's Republic of China: Background, Features and Key Reflections" was successfully held in Conference Room 434, Xingmin Building, Xianlin Campus of Nanjing Normal University. The lecture was delivered by Professor Hu Xiaohong, a law professor at Nanjing University, a counselor to the Jiangsu Provincial People's Government, and President of the Jiangsu Provincial Law Society's Research Association for the Rule of Law in Foreign-Related Matters. It was chaired by Professor Yan Lin, Vice Dean of the School of Foreign-Related Rule of Law at Nanjing Normal University. Teachers including Zheng Lingli, Yang Dan, and Li Xu from the Law School attended the entire session, and numerous students from various grades were present to study, creating a strong academic atmosphere.

At the beginning of the lecture, Professor Yan Lin extended a warm welcome to Professor Hu Xiaohong and briefly introduced her profound academic achievements in international economic law, environmental law and other fields to the teachers and students present. Professor Hu Xiaohong opened her lecture by sharing her experience of being invited to participate in a symposium held by the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on the revision of the Foreign Trade Law, recounting how the revision proposals she and Associate Professor Yang Dan from our school jointly put forward were partially adopted in the final legislation. She noted that the role transformation from a scholar to a legislative participant vividly embodies the principle of "applying knowledge to practice" in legal research, which led to the core topic of the lecture: how the revised Foreign Trade Law responds to profound changes in both domestic and international environments through institutional design, and how it coordinates with laws and regulations such as the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, the Export Control Law, and the recently enacted Regulations on Countering Foreign States' Unlawful Extraterritorial Jurisdiction.
Regarding the background of the revision, Professor Hu analyzed it from both domestic and international dimensions. She pointed out that domestically, the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan has set higher requirements for institutional opening-up, and new business forms such as cross-border e-commerce, digital trade and green trade are booming, urgently demanding institutional responses at the legal level. Internationally, external pressures—including the frequent use of Section 301 investigations by the US, intensified geopolitical conflicts, strategic transformation of critical mineral resources, and frequent disputes in cross-border trade—have compelled China to align proactively with high-standard international economic and trade rules such as the CPTPP while establishing a more robust risk prevention, control and countermeasure system. It is against this backdrop of changing domestic and international circumstances that the Foreign Trade Law has undergone its fourth revision since its enactment in 1994.

Professor Hu summarized the main features of the revision in three aspects: first, anchoring the two-way balance between opening-up and security; second, aligning with high-standard international rules; and third, increasing penalties on liable parties, reflecting a significant enhancement of legislative deterrence.

On the main content of the revision, Professor Hu highlighted four key highlights. First, a unilateral opening-up system for trade in services was established: a new Article 27 clarifies the four modes of cross-border trade in services, and Article 31 stipulates the implementation of a negative list management system for cross-border trade in services, with the issuance of a "negative list for cross-border trade in services" to achieve higher-level unilateral and independent opening-up. Second, intellectual property protection was further strengthened: a new Article 33 requires the establishment and improvement of an overseas intellectual property early warning and rights protection assistance information platform. Third, the foreign trade remedy system was improved: a new Paragraph 2 of Article 51 clarifies that when dispute settlement mechanisms fail to function properly, the Chinese government may take corresponding measures; meanwhile, Article 55 establishes a "trade adjustment assistance system" for the first time at the national legal level, providing an institutional tool to respond to changes in the trade environment and stabilize industrial and supply chains. Fourth, special rules promoting the development of new forms of trade were added: Articles 59 to 61 stipulate on the construction of cross-border e-commerce, digital trade and green trade systems respectively.

In the fourth part of the lecture, Professor Hu Xiaohong discussed the coordination between the revised Foreign Trade Law and other laws and regulations in conjunction with the recently issued State Council Regulations on the Security of Industrial and Supply Chains and the Regulations on Countering Foreign States' Unlawful Extraterritorial Jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China.
During the interactive session, teachers and students actively raised questions. Heated discussions were held on topics including how to truly balance development and security under the framework of the Foreign Trade Law, the connection between the Foreign Trade Law and legislation such as the Export Control Law, the compliance assessment of trade policies by people's governments at or above the county level and their departments, administrative remedy procedures for Chinese enterprises in US courts regarding Xinjiang-related trade restrictions such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, and the standardization of evidence preservation and notarization/authentication procedures in such processes.

At the end of the lecture, Professor Yan Lin delivered concluding remarks. He highly praised Professor Hu Xiaohong's lecture for its cutting-edge content, in-depth analysis and comprehensive framework, noting that it covers the basic structure of a mature academic paper—from the background of the revision, main features and core content to reflections on legal coordination—providing valuable academic guidance for teachers and students of Nanjing Normal University Law School in their research on the Foreign Trade Law and China's foreign-related rule of law construction.

The lecture concluded successfully with warm applause from the teachers and students.