Da Nang has spent years selling itself as a place for conferences. This weekend it hosted one with unusually high-level guests: senior judges and court officials from Southeast Asia and China.

Vietnam's Supreme People's Court hosted the fourth ASEAN-China Justice Forum in Da Nang, VietnamPlus reported. It's the first time the forum has met in an ASEAN country. The previous three, in 2014, 2017 and 2022, were all held in Nanning, China. VietnamPlus dated the opening October 10. Tuoi Tre News put it on Friday, October 9, with the forum running through Monday.

Who came

About 130 delegates attended: about 70 from foreign courts, 12 from foreign diplomatic missions in Vietnam and nearly 50 Vietnamese delegates. Speakers included Vietnam's chief justice Nguyen Van Quang; Le Minh Tri, a Politburo member who heads the Party's Central Commission for Internal Affairs; and Zhang Jun, president of China's Supreme People's Court.

What they talked about

The theme was "Strengthening Judicial Cooperation Amid International Integration and the Digital Era." Tuoi Tre News reported two working sessions:

  1. Cooperation on cross-border criminal cases and civil and commercial disputes in the digital era.
  2. Experience building e-courts and smart courts, and using artificial intelligence to support adjudication.

Tri said judicial cooperation helps fight transnational and high-tech crime and protects the rights of individuals and businesses. Quang said it supports a stable, transparent legal environment for ASEAN-China trade. Zhang called the forum the highest-level and most comprehensive multilateral judicial platform between the two sides, and tied it to the fifth anniversary of their comprehensive strategic partnership.

VietnamPlus reported that participants adopted a joint communique setting directions for future cooperation. Tuoi Tre News's report didn't describe any formal outcome.

Why it's worth a local look

Courts aren't the usual Da Nang beat, but two items on this agenda touch residents directly. Cross-border fraud and commercial disputes are a growing headache for a city full of foreign businesses, visitors and online scams. And "smart courts" and AI-assisted adjudication are coming to Vietnamese courtrooms whether the public is ready or not.

The communique is the document to watch. If it commits to faster cooperation on recovering money lost to cross-border scams, that would matter to a lot more people than the guest list.

Sources

This story was compiled by the Da Nang Voice news desk from the published sources listed above. Facts, figures and quotes are attributed to those sources; Da Nang Voice did not conduct interviews for it unless the text says so. Corrections are dated and noted at the top of the story. Read our corrections policy. Spotted an error? Tell us.