Wang Xiaoguang completed hislegal studies at the China-EU School of Law in 2015 with a double master’s degree. Now he is drawn back to university – and to Europe. At Universität Hamburg, hehones his profile as a corporate lawyer.

“For me, the China-EU School of Law was the starting point,” the 28-year old says. The supervisor of this master’s thesis, Prof. Zheng Yongliu, taught for several years as a guest professor and lecturer in Frankfurt, Freiburg and Saarbrücken and is an expert on Germany. In his thesis, Wang Xiaoguang compared investment law regulations within China – and realised not only that there are differences between Eastern metropolises such as Beijing or Shanghai and remote Western areas, he also noticedhow tempted he was by the topic. “A huge country such as China of course is complex”, Wang Xiaoguang says with a smile. “This is often surprising to non-Chinese people whotake a closer look at Chinese law for the first time.”

With his degree, he easily found his first job as a paralegal in an investment law firm in Beijing. “The China-EU School of Law has a very good reputation in Beijing legal circles. If you completed a double master’s degree in an international environment, you are believed to be capable of a lot.” Yet after two years of consulting – should a company invest in bike-sharing business models, was one of the questions on his desk – he decided to take the next step. In January 2018, he began to study in the „European Master in Law and Economics“ programme for a trimester at Universität Hamburg. Previously, he spent three months in Rotterdam, in March he will leave for Warsaw. With this one-year master's programme, he wants to acquire solid economic skills, which hone his profile as a corporate lawyer. “I already knew Universität Hamburg as a China-EU School of Law partner,” he explains. “The university has an excellent name in the field of Corporate Law.”He can imagine to work as a corporate lawyer next.

Germans are quitestraight forward and exact, he was told while still in China. He also feels that way now in Hamburg. “Germans go straight to the point, while Chinese gather more information before the address an issue.” Yet, while in Rotterdam, Wang Xiaoguang also got the impression that the Dutch were quite straight forward. "It is interesting to experience these cultural differences," he says. "In Hamburg, over 20 very different people from different countries, different universities and different disciplines gather in one course – of course they ask very different questions.” Wang Xiaoguang already appreciated this in the mixed Chinese-European classes at the China-EU School of Law. “As a lawyer, with every case I automatically tend to ask first, what the legal relationship between the single actors is and which law applies.” His fellow students in Hamburg now again turn his gaze on other aspects, economic ones or cultural ones. "With this multilayer approach we often get further,” Wang Xiaoguang says who thinks that a legal perspective sometimes is too limited to grasp the complexity of reality. “And even if you want to argue solely as a lawyer, it is important to know what non-lawyers think, so that you can better explain legal positions.”