Abstract
China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan have a singular political relationship. This distinctive relationship creates a unique impact on the nationality of the arbitral awards among the said countries. Each of these regions does not adopt the arbitral award of the other party as either a foreign arbitration award or a domestic arbitration award, but separately adopts the arbitral award in different jurisdictions within the same country. Therefore, in order to approve and enforce their arbitral awards in other areas, they have no choice to apply special laws or the conventions concluded between them, neither the New York Convention nor the individual arbitration laws in those areas. Therefore, this paper reviewed the convention and self-established laws among China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan regarding the approval and execution of the other arbitral awards. In addition, the domestic laws in China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan are compared with the New York Convention to ascertain the criteria for distinguishing domestic and foreign arbitral awards. This study also compared and analyzed what criteria were established for the determination of the nationality of the arbitral awards in the domestic law or the convention concluded in pan China. Through the analysis of these contents, the characteristics and problems of criterion for the determination of nationality among China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan were identified. Based on the results, this study examined the precautions Korean companies entering these regions should use in the arbitration system in these areas.