From November 22 to 23, 2025, the 2025 Annual National Conference of the Chinese Society for Criminal Law Studies was held in Xi'an. This year's conference was hosted by China Criminal Law Society, organized by Northwest University of Political Science and Law, and co-organized by Beijing King&Capital Law Firm and Shaanxi Hepu Ruicheng Law Firm. With the theme of “Criminal Law Guarantee for High-Quality Development and High-Level Security”, the conference centered on in-depth discussions on major theoretical and practical issues in the development of China's criminal law, and was attended by nearly 500 experts, scholars and representatives of the practical circles from the domestic criminal law field. Tian Wenchang, consultant of China Criminal Law Research Society, consultant of Criminal Professional Committee of All China Lawyers Association and founding partner of King&Capital Law Firm, made a keynote report at the conference, Liang Yali, executive director of China Criminal Law Research Society, senior partner of King&Capital Law Firm and director of King&Capital Law Firm Criminal Defense Research Center, made a keynote speech, and King&Capital Law Firm lawyers such as Wang Siyu, Tang Wanzhuo, Ding Wei, Yang Haiming, and Zheng Xuan, etc, were invited to attend the conference.
Representatives of King&Capital Law Firm, from left: Wang Siyu, Tang Wanzhuo, Ding Wei, Liang Yali, Tian Wenchang, Yang Haiming, Zheng Xian
Opening Ceremony
开幕式上，“人民教育家”、中国刑法学研究会名誉会长高铭暄作书面讲话；全国人大常委会法制工作委员会副主任雷建斌，最高人民法院党组成员、副院长沈亮，最高人民检察院党组成员、副检察长葛晓燕，中国法学会副会长赵昌华，陕西 Liu Qiang, member of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee for Political and Legal Affairs, and Zhao Wandong, Secretary of the Party Committee of Northwestern University of Political Science and Law, made opening speeches respectively. Mr. Qu Xinjiu, vice president of China Criminal Law Society and professor of China University of Political Science and Law, made a report on the annual work of the society. Mr. Jia Yu, President of China Criminal Law Research Society, Secretary of the Party Group of Shanghai Higher People's Court and President of Shanghai Higher People's Court, presided over the opening ceremony.
Keynote Report by Mr. Tian Wenchang: Calling for Clarification of Offense Formulations and Building a Strong Foundation of Criminal Law Protection for Market Economy
In the keynote report, Mr. Tian Wenchang made a report on the topic of “Clarification of criminal expression should be put on the agenda of law revision”. He believes that the precision of criminal law offense expression is the cornerstone of scientific criminal procedure and the core requirement of the principle of legality of crime and punishment, and that the ambiguity of criminal law offense expression in our country is prominent, which has triggered a lot of negative consequences, and urgently needs to be solved by amending the law.
Mr. Tian Wenchang giving a keynote speech.
Mr. Tian Wenchang said that in judicial practice, the main manifestation of the ambiguity of the expression of the crime is the prevalence of blank crime: for example, Article 332 of the Criminal Law, the crime of obstructing the sanitary and quarantine of the state border, need to invoke administrative regulations to define the constitutive elements, breaking the principle of legal exclusivity, and the content of the changes with the administrative regulations, increasing uncertainty; secondly, it is the misuse of the bottom clause: the crime of illegal business operation, “Other serious illegal business operation that disrupts the market order”. The second is the abuse of the underlining provisions: the illegal business operation crime “other serious illegal business operation behaviors that disturb the market order” and other underlining expressions, making it a “pocket crime”, the highest judicial authorities have repeatedly expanded the interpretation, making the risk of business compliance difficult to measure, and similar underlining provisions can be seen in the criminal law; the third is the vagueness of the narrative crime: the crime of falsely issuing VAT invoices has not been clearly defined; the crime of “cheating tax purpose” has not been clearly defined. The “purpose of tax fraud” element, leading to a large number of miscarriages of justice during the 27 years, even if the Supreme Court issued a judicial interpretation in 2024, there are still miscarriages of justice; the crime of obtaining loans by deception, such as “significant loss” and "serious circumstances The “major loss” and “serious circumstances” of the crime of obtaining loans by deception are ambiguous, and there are cases of conviction without loss; the judicial interpretation of the crime of major liability accident is easily misinterpreted, and expands the scope of the criminal subject; and the crime of organizing and leading pyramid schemes is insufficiently expressed, and it is difficult to define whether the new form of sales is a pyramid scheme.
Mr. Tian Wenchang giving a keynote report
The deep-seated reasons, Mr. Tian Wenchang believes that China's market economy and the construction of the rule of law are in the primary stage, both dynamic development, legislation lack of mature experience and laws to follow, resulting in the lack of legal norms, lagging behind, difficult to adapt to the needs of economic development, and the private sector due to the fragile foundation of the most negatively impacted. Therefore, he puts forward three suggestions: first, to enhance the concept of the rule of law: to face up to the serious consequences of ambiguous crimes, and to recognize the necessity and urgency of amending the law through the statistics of enterprise crime cases; second, to improve the legislative technology: to limit and refine the underpinning clauses, and to clarify the scope by legislation or judicial interpretation when necessary; to clarify the scope of the laws invoked in the blank crimes, and to reduce the use of such laws and to set up a review mechanism; and to sort out and optimize the narrative of crimes and to eliminate ambiguities; Third, strengthen the supporting security: with the spirit of legislation, do not expand the interpretation of the judicial interpretation and guiding cases to supplement, assist the clarity of the crime landing.
Tian Wenchang emphasized that the current vague negative impact of the crime has been highlighted, in the rule of law after more than 40 years of construction, to promote the clarity of the expression of the crime to amend the law is imperative, which is not only the implementation of the principle of the law of crime and punishment, but also to protect the healthy development of the market economy is the key.
Speech by Mr. Liang Yali: Focusing on the Law Enforcement of Enterprise-Related Profit Tendency, and Proposing Strategies for Responding to the Entire Process
The annual conference has set up “Research on the construction of criminal law protection system for digital security”, “Research on social governance and criminal countermeasures in the new era”, “Research on the criminal law protection for the development of private economy” and “Research on foreign-related criminal law issues”. “Five parallel forums were set up for the study of foreign-related criminal rule of law issues and the study of frontier issues of criminal law theory, and a graduate forum was opened focusing on the theme of ”Criminal Law Guarantee for High-Quality Development and High-Level Security". Graduate Student Forum.
Ms. Liang Ya-Li delivered a keynote speech.
In the third session of the parallel forum, “Research on Criminal Law Protection for the Development of Private Economy”, Liang Yali made a special speech centering on “Response Strategies of Convergent Law Enforcement and Justice in Criminal Cases Involving Enterprises from the Perspective of Lawyers”. Liang Yali lawyer pointed out that the phenomenon of profit-oriented law enforcement not only infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises and entrepreneurs, but also seriously undermines the business environment and the credibility of the judiciary, and it is urgent to explore the path of cracking from the legal level. She from the form and harm of the law enforcement tendency, substantive defense and procedural defense and other dimensions of how to avoid or correct the adverse effects of law enforcement tendency, etc., carried out a detailed and in-depth discussion.
In terms of entity defense, Liang Yali proposed that the three dimensions of “crime and non-crime, this crime and that crime, and the determination of the amount of crime” must be carried out, and must firmly grasp the three major characteristics of crime, namely “social harm, criminal lawlessness and punishable by criminal penalties”, and strictly follow the principle of the law of crime and punishment, and closely follow the principle of the law of crime and punishment, and strictly follow the principle of the law of crime and punishment. The principle of the law of crime and punishment, close to the elements of the crime to carry out prudent and accurate analysis, to avoid the pursuit of heavy punishment or more convenient confiscation phenomenon through the “upgrading of the crime”.
Ms. Liang Ya-Li gives a keynote speech.
According to Liang Yali, procedural defense is the key to correcting the tendency of law enforcement: focusing on jurisdiction objection and coercive measures regulation in the investigation stage, targeting issues such as “designation of residence and prison”, “arrest”, ‘seizure’, “over-scope”, etc., in a timely manner. The investigation stage focuses on jurisdictional objections and the regulation of coercive measures, and raises timely objections to the abuse of “designated detention”, ‘arrest’ and “freezing and withholding”, etc.; the prosecution stage makes good use of the non-prosecution system, and combines with the policy of “fewer arrests, more cautious prosecutions and more cautious detentions”, so as to strive for a chance of survival for the cases involving enterprises with minor circumstances; the trial stage focuses on promoting the exclusion of illegal evidence, and puts forward a rigorous review of the relevance and proportionality of the disposition of property involved in cases. The lawyers of Liang Yali called for the effective curbing of the illegal evidence exclusion.
Liang Yali lawyer called for effective curbing of profit-oriented law enforcement, optimize the development environment of the private economy, is a systematic project, need to be legal people and even the whole society's collaborative governance, lawyers should follow the national policy, adapt to the new era of the new background, for the high quality of China's economy, high-level development of the rule of law to contribute to the strength of the rule of law.
King&Capital Law Firm shows its commitment to criminal defense by co-organizing and deeply participating in the project.
It is understood that during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, China Criminal Law Association closely follows the strategic needs of Chinese modernization, deeply integrates into the overall situation of national security, economic development and social governance, and promotes synergistic innovation between theoretical and practical circles by revising the criminal law teaching materials of the Marxist Theory Research and Construction Project, participating in the debate on the amendments to the Criminal Law (XII) and other major legislations, etc. The association has been able to promote the cooperation and innovation between theoretical and practical circles. By revising the criminal law textbooks of the Marxist Theory Research and Construction Project, deeply participating in the argumentation of major legislation such as the Twelfth Amendment to the Criminal Law, and promoting the synergistic innovation between the theoretical and practical circles, the university has built a benign closed loop of “academic research-policy suggestion-judicial practice”, and has made noteworthy achievements in the construction of the academic system, the empowerment of the legislature and judiciary, and the expansion of exchange and cooperation.
Group photo of all participants
As the co-organizer of this annual conference, King&Capital Law Firm provided strong support for the forum. From the legislative advice of Mr. Tian Wenchang, to the practical strategy sharing of Ms. Liang Yali, to the active participation of many young lawyers, King&Capital Law Firm has fully demonstrated its professional influence and industry commitment in the field of criminal rule of law with the gesture of “Theory+Practice” double-wheel drive.
King&Capital Law Firm will take this meeting as an opportunity to continue to plough into the theoretical research and practical exploration of criminal law, and actively participate in the improvement of criminal legislation and optimization of judicial practice, so as to contribute more “Kyoto Wisdom” for the high-quality development, high level of security, and promote the rule of law in a comprehensive manner.
