An increasing number of foreigners are receiving legal aid, mostly for criminal cases, a senior official said. 

There has been a 15 percent annual increase, since 2008, of foreigners availing of free legal aid, Sun Jianying, director of the legal aid department under the Ministry of Justice told China Daily in an exclusive interview. 

Most of the cases involved violent crime, such as drug smuggling, rape and robbery, as well as financial crimes, like fraud, she said.

Recipients were mostly from African, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries, Sun said.

The exact number of foreigners who received free legal aid last year was not disclosed. However, taking Guangdong province, a key region in China's opening up, as an example, authorities there handled 808 legal aid cases involving foreigners since 2008. This represented an annual 21 percent increase, according to figures from the Guangdong justice department.

The number of foreigners staying in China for more than six months hit 600,000 last year, up from about 20,000 in 1980. A foreign defendant in a criminal case, according to the law, can have a lawyer appointed by the court if they are unable to hire one.

Li Xuelian, another official with the legal aid department at the Ministry of Justice, said that they have set up a database of 200,000 qualified volunteer lawyers who can offer free legal help. About a third of these lawyers can communicate in English, Li said

Moreover, legal aid authorities have difficulties in employing lawyers to defend suspects who don’t speak English.

The ministry plans to establish a talent pool of lawyers, and divide them into categories based on the languages they speak, Sun said.