Donald Clarke is Professor of Law Emeritus at the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. His academic specialty is modern Chinese law, with a particular focus on corporate governance, Chinese legal institutions, and the legal issues presented by China’s economic reforms.

In addition to his academic work, he founded and maintains Chinalaw, the leading Internet listserv on Chinese law; writes The China Collection blog and the Chinese Law Notes Substack newsletter; and is a co-editor of Asian Law Abstracts on the Social Science Research Network. He has also served as an expert witness on Chinese law matters in a number of legal cases, and has advised organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. Public Company Accounting and Oversight Board, and the U.S. Department of Justice. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Clarke holds an A.B. degree from Princeton University, an M.Sc. degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Prior to his current position, he was on the faculty of SOAS and the University of Washington School of Law, and he has been a visiting professor at New York University Law School, UCLA School of Law, and Duke Law School.

Last Updated: September 25, 2024

Conversation

10.04.24

Tick Tock for TikTok

Kevin Xu, Ivy Yang & more
Will TikTok succeed in defending itself on First Amendment grounds, or will it be forced to shut down in the U.S.? Or will ByteDance find a creative way out of the problem? What will this case mean for Chinese business interests in the U.S. and the...

Conversation

06.21.21

Will I Return to China?

Scott Kennedy, Tracy Wen Liu & more
ChinaFile sent a short questionnaire to several hundred ChinaFile contributors to get a sense of their feelings about traveling to China once COVID-19 restrictions begin to ease. Media reports at the time had suggested, anecdotally, that foreigners...

Conversation

06.16.20

China’s Zoom Bomb

Wang Dan, Donald Clarke & more
In the lead-up to the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations this spring, Zoom, the U.S.-based company whose online meeting platform has rocketed to global prominence amid the COVID-19 pandemic, received requests from China’s...

Viewpoint

04.23.19

Who Owns Huawei?

Christopher Balding & Donald Clarke
Who owns Huawei? American officials have long claimed the controversial telecommunications giant belongs to the Chinese state, while Huawei has long called itself a “private company wholly owned by its employees.” Huawei states that its founder, Ren...

Conversation

03.28.19

What Does the Punishment of a Prominent Scholar Mean for Intellectual Freedom in China?

Donald Clarke, David Yeliang Xia & more
This week, Xu Zhangrun, a law professor at Beijing’s Tsinghua University who in recent months has penned a series of essays critical of policies of the Chinese Communist Party and of its leader, Xi Jinping, was banned from teaching, relieved of his...

Conversation

10.17.18

The Taxman Cometh for Fan Bingbing. So How Widespread Is Tax Evasion in China?

Wei Cui, Donald Clarke & more
Mega-famous Chinese actress Fan Bingbing emerged from months of silence to admit on Weibo that she had evaded taxes and owed over U.S.$100 million worth of civil fines to Chinese authorities. In a remarkable apology, Fan wrote that, “without good...

Conversation

03.02.18

How Will Trump’s Tariffs Affect U.S.-China Relations?

Derek Scissors, Donald Clarke & more
Arguing that America is harmed by other countries’ trade practices, President Donald Trump said on March 1 that the U.S. will impose a new 25 percent tariff on imported steel and 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum. “People have no idea how badly...

Conversation

08.05.15

Should the U.S. Extradite Chinese Wanted by Beijing?

Jerome A. Cohen, Chen Weihua & more
This week, The New York Times reported that Chinese officials have asked the U.S. government to help in apprehending Ling Wancheng, a wealthy Chinese business man and the brother of one of the highest-level officials to have been targeted in Xi...

Conversation

01.16.15

Why Did The West Weep for Paris But Not for Kunming?

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, Taisu Zhang & more
In the days since the attacks that killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Chinese netizens have watched the outpouring of solidarity. As our colleagues at Foreign Policy reported earlier this week, the...

Conversation

10.17.14

Rule of Law—Why Now?

Ira Belkin, Donald Clarke & more
In a recent essay, “How China’s Leaders Will Rule on the Law,” Carl Minzner looks at the question of why China’s leaders have announced they will emphasize rule of law at the upcoming Chinese Communist Party plenum slated to take place in Beijing...

Conversation

09.12.14

Is a Trade War with China Looming?

Arthur R. Kroeber & Donald Clarke
As Alibaba gets ready to sell shares on Wall Street, U.S. investors will be focused on Chinese companies getting a fair shake here in America even as some big U.S. brand names (Microsoft, Chrysler, et al) are being shaken down by China's newly...

Sinica Podcast

08.02.14

The Rule of Law in China

Jeremy Goldkorn, David Moser & more from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, Jeremy and David are joined by Donald Clarke, a professor at George Washington University where he specializes in Chinese law, for a discussion of what is happening with the Zhou Yongkang corruption scandal, as well as ongoing...

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Chinese Law Prof Blog
08.14.12

Did she indeed confess to everything? All the reports state in various ways that Gu confessed. The Zhao Report says, “She fully admitted her acts in the case without reservation; she offered no objections.” The Xinhua Report says that she “confessed to intentional homicide”. It seems, however, that in fact she did question parts of the prosecution...

Topics: Law, Politics
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Chinese Law Prof Blog
08.10.12

An unofficial report of proceedings in the Gu Kailai trial has surfaced. I can't vouch for its authenticity, but have done a quick and dirty, and not entirely literal, translation anyway. Comments, corrections, and suggestions welcome.

Topics: Law, Politics
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Chinese Law Prof Blog
07.27.12

Many bloggers have already written about the posturing of certain of our elected representatives on the issue of China-made clothing for US Olympic athletes, using various permutations of the word “idiot” (e.g., Daniel Drezner, “idiocies like the Olympic-uniform controversy”;Stan Abrams, “US Olympic Uniform Idiotfest”).

Topics: Politics, Society