“Without the China-EU School of Law I would not have thought about a PhD in Maastricht”

27 February 2017, by Internetredaktion

Li Shuo, 27, grew up in Shijiazhuang, a 10-million-people city in North China, and earned a double master’s degree in law at the China-EU School of Law in China’s capital Beijing in 2015. Today, she’s a PhD student in Maastricht, a Dutch town with 120,000 inhabitants, and a growing international student population.

When did you decide to pursue a PhD in law?

I decided to do that in the last year of my master’s studies. I had just learned about China’s first Anti-Monopoly Law that was enacted in 2008 with massive support of the US and the EU and I really wanted to continue research on this topic. Competition law is still at an early stage in China. Chinese authorities are not that experienced with it. I’m examining jurisdictions in China, the EU, the US and Japan. If you take a closer look at it, you recognize clearly that these regions have very different legal systems and in particular very different ideas on competition law. As a result, there are conflicts that can even stir up to trade war. So now when I’m examining “Conflicts and Compromise: Internationalisation of Competition Law and Chinese participation”, I am also hoping to point out future solutions to some of these conflicts. China’s economy has grown stronger since 2008, Chinese-foreign trade and investment will become even more important.

How did your studies at the China-EU School of Law prepare you for your PhD studies?

Without the experiences at the China-EU School of Law I would not have decided to go to Europe for my PhD.  I was really glad that CESL offered me the chance to get in touch with European professors and lecturers such as Prof. Niels Philipsen, who taught Comparative law in the Master in Beijing and is now my co-supervisor here in Maastricht. That acquaintance also helped me find my topic. Moreover, during my six-week visit to Central European University in Budapest during my elective courses at CESL. I got a taste of what it feels like to study abroad. Without these experiences, I’d probably pursued my PhD in China.

Is Maastricht University a good place for a PhD candidate in law?

I am so happy to conduct research here. At Maastricht University, almost 300 PhD students graduate each year. Since there are so many PhD candidates, there are many ways to connect on a professional and social level. The university organizes PhD lunches and PhD walks, where I can meet people from all over the world, and where we discuss our work and give each other useful advice. I meet up with my supervisor approximately every six weeks and I can e-mail whenever I encounter a problem. Since I receive a full scholarship by the Chinese Scholarship Council I do not have to worry about the fees either. Maastricht is such a quiet, beautiful town. I feel very free here and I like that you can easily travel to everywhere in Europe. I also appreciate that Maastricht has such an international study body. A full 49% of students come from abroad. And when I miss my family home in Shijuiazhuang, it helps to talk to one of the other 15 Chinese PhD students here at the university.