Following
the modernization and westernization of Chinese law at the beginning of the 20th century, arbitration was
introduced into China, principally as a means of commercial dispute resolution.
At first, it was hardly distinguishable from mediation and its implementation faced
many difficulties resulting from specific features inherited from traditional
Chinese law. The study of dispute resolution in Imperial China from the Ming
dynasty onwards reveals that mediation had occupied a prominent place but was
often practised under duress and was sometimes decided by the judge himself. At
the same time, decisions rendered by the Chinese courts were not as binding on parties
as under Western law. It is therefore only gradually that arbitration has
become truly distinct from mediation.