These days it's a round plastic handle with a carved rubber bottom that pairs with a spongy red-ink filled bottom. There's a picture and an explanation at [1]. It basically functions the same way as the signature of an authorized representative of the company does in the West.

Presumably it comes out of personal seals which are a fun item to get if you're in China. I never interacted with someone who used them, but it's cool. See pictures at [2] and history at [3].

"Chop" is also frequently used instead of "seal". I assume its not onomatopoedic, but that is a fair description of the "thunk" sound produced to when the seal is quickly pounded against the document on the table.

[1] https://www.china-briefing.com/news/company-chops-in-china/

[2] https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/chinese-...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(East_Asia)

In Japan seals/stamps (hanko) are still widely used as signatures.

Japan, Korea, Vietnam, China all using seal/stamp

Ditto Korea. Something that shocked me is that it is common in medium-sized sole proprietorships (tech startups, small businesses, research labs) for the CEO to give their personal seal to the accountants/secretaries. It the West the equivalent would be giving away an autopen for your signature.

There are different grades of seals for different purposes. The secretary will have the garden-variety "The company has received this shipment" chop; they will not have the "The company has agreed to this contract" chop.

in western companies, executive assistants very often have the exact same ability, up to and including signed full power of attorneys for executing on the ceo’s life where work blends into personal life.

i’m not surprised at this at all.

in the western context many executive assistants end up being appointed the executor of the ceo’s estate / will as a matter of business continuity.

I wonder if they were giving their full official seal? I suppose if you're signing a ton of documents, handing that over might be needed. It would be interesting if there were a system to register certain seals with only some permissions (for example, manage business but not personal assets with a green seal). You could create a document stamped with your most important seal that indicates which seal is permissible for which purpose.

In Japan, the official "hanko" seal with red ink carries the force of a signature, but other seals do not carry as much or any legal weight.

https://www.nippon.com/en/features/jg00077/

That article talks a little bit about a similar system to the one I mentioned, where one seal is used for banking, one for title transactions, etc. Something like that but more customizable could be pretty useful.

It’s more common in the west than you think - we had a printer loaded with MIRC toner and a SIMM with the CEOs signature for printing checks.

It's a thing in the US too. Just formed a C-Corp and power to create a seal that serves as the company's official signature is one of the parts that needs to be figured out in bylaws. You can specify that the current Chairman or CEO's signature counts as a seal, but you legally need some seal entity so that .gov knows what's legally binding. We elected to have an actual seal just for the kitsch value of it. Why make a company if you can't have a little fun with it?

That's the problem with physical seal...

A chairmanner can be declared by the board, and the power of his seal goes with that automatically.

Say, somebody steals a seal now...

Sensible businesses usually keep the seal locked up somewhere in the head office, probably with a backup in a safety deposit box at their bank. They certainly don't let the CEO take it home with them.

Yes, there are corporate seals in the USA as well. Sometimes it is an embosser, others an ink stamp.

I don't quite understand this either, isn't this something where you could make a new seal with the same design? Does the original seal have something specific that's not supposed to be copied? Or is this like the copyright ownership of the company's seal?

The seal for a Chinese company is registered with the local government. An important part of verifying China contracts is double-checking the seal.

In my country seals are used for business. There's a legal arsenal that makes forging a company seal or using it without authority more risky than dealing drugs. You can get in jail for life for this kind of crime. It's very efficient because companies making seals took the habit of asking for a proof of authority for making the seal representing a company to shield themselves from prosecution