Every few months someone will write one of my law firm's China lawyers asking them to translate an already written contract for China. We always refuse, not just because we are lawyers not translators, but because doing so would be a complete waste of time because contracts that work for the United States, Europe, Australia, Canada, etc., do not work for China and putting those contracts into Chinese won't change that. Indeed, it is ridiculous to think that an American business owner could draft a contract in English and that contract would work for China.

If you want to greatly increase your chances of being able to enforce your contract with your Chinese counter-party company, you should do the below. You should do a lot more than this, both within and outside your contract, but I am limiting this post to just those things directly and nearly always necessary for enforcing a Chinese contract and its terms) Have a written contract. Have the written contract set out how disputes will be resolved and, more importantly, set forth the right forum for those disputes; Have Chinese be the official language of your contract if it is going to be enforced in China, which usually (but not always) makes sense; Have the written contract set out in excruciating detail what the Chinese company must do to comply with the contract; Set out the damages the Chinese company must pay if it fails to comply with the contract; Make sure the Chinese company signs and seals your contract.