Zhu Xiangyang has become the first Taiwan resident permitted to practise law in the mainland, after passing China's annual judicial exam in September last year.
"I've been waiting for this lawyer certificate for 15 years," said Zhu, when he received the approval of internship from the Beijing Bar Association recently.
Zhu, like any Chinese lawyer, is required to take a one-year internship in a law firm before he can be granted a lawyer certificate to be an officially PRC-qualified lawyer. Now he is working as a trainee lawyer in Beijing Lantern Law Firm.
It is Zhu's second try to obtain the mainland lawyer qualification. Early in 1990, Zhu studied Chinese law in Xiamen University, Fujian Province. He sat the mainland judicial exam for the first time in Hong Kong in 1994 when China gave a one-off dispensation to the Taiwanese. Although he was one of the three Taiwanese who got a pass in that test, the qualification was then pronounced invalid.
In recent years, with the drive to boost economic ties across the Taiwan Straits, many Taiwan residents have enquired about China's judicial exam and expressed interest in taking the exam. In 2008, the Chinese government finally put judicial reform on its agenda and made Taiwan residents eligible to practise in the mainland.
Taiwanese have been allowed to sit the exam since April 2008, when China's Ministry of Justice announced regulations giving the green light to Taiwan residents again.
The new regulations were followed by a series of operative guidelines which became effective on 1 January 2009. The relaxation of judicial control is expected to help promote cross-strait relations and provide better legal services in the mainland.
The first exam after the new regulations were brought in attracted over 600 Taiwanese candidates, 37 of whom passed.