Chinese leader Xi Jinping told members of the Communist Party to influence international laws and to promote China’s socialist rule of law in a bid to safeguard and promote Beijing’s hegemonic ambition. “[We must] launch an international fight by using judicial methods,” Xi said in a speech that he delivered to Party cadres during the Politburo’s recent study session “on building a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics,” according to a Feb. 15 report by Qiushi, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) official bi-monthly theoretical journal. Xi said the main goal of reforming domestic laws and foreign-related laws is to show the world China’s rule of law system and to step up its influence in the rules-based international order. Xi revealed the regime has tried to take legal actions overseas to achieve its goals since the Party’s 18th Congress in November 2012, when Xi took office. Observers say China’s so-called rule of law …