On Nov 28, Zhang Jun, chief justice and president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) of China, received a delegation headed by Singapore's Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, who was in China to attend the 7th China-Singapore Legal and Judicial Roundtable.

Zhang Jun, chief justice and president of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) of China, receives a delegation headed by Singapore's Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon on Nov 28, 2023. [Photo/court.gov.cn]

Zhang extended a warm welcome to the delegation on their visit and said that Singapore has been most involved in China's reform and opening-up and has most interconnected interests with China among Southeast Asian countries. The meeting between the two heads of state in March this year has elevated bilateral ties and is bound to deepen the two nations’ strategic mutual trust and expand pragmatic cooperation, he said.

He briefly introduced the major work of Chinese courts and offered insights into future bilateral judicial cooperation, raising his hope of deepening cooperation in such fields as artificial intelligence governance, financial adjudication, the judicial protection of intellectual property, and international commercial disputes settlement, in a bid to elevate bilateral cooperation in legal and judicial matters to a higher level.

Menon thanked Zhang for the meeting and affirmed the deepened judicial cooperation in line with the elevation of bilateral ties. Despite differences in national conditions, China and Singapore have a lot in common in terms of the challenges they face and solutions they come up with, which is worth mutual learning, he said. Singapore's Supreme Court is ready to work with its Chinese counterpart to further strengthen judicial communication, deepen pragmatic cooperation, fully tap the demonstrative role of the roundtable and carry out close exchanges and cooperation in such areas as personnel training and the joint resolution of transnational bankruptcy issues, he added.

The delegation also visited the SPC's key laboratory of smart court.