ABSTRACT
The enactment of the Law of Property (LP) (wuquan fa, alternatively translated as Property Law) in March 2007 in China – after a long process stretching over 14 years1 during which some of the most heated debates2 in contemporary Chinese legislative history took place – has been hailed as a milestone in the development of contemporary Chinese law. The LP is one of the most important core components of the evolving civil law in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This chapter attempts to understand some of the key concepts and provisions in the LP in the context of the evolving Chinese law relating to property rights, the changing economic system as China moves from a socialist planned economy to a socialist market economy or ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’, and from the perspective of comparative law. This chapter also seeks to answer the following two questions. To what extent is the LP a product of borrowing from or transplant of foreign legal ideas, and to what extent is it a refl ection of indigenous circumstances and needs in China? And, to what extent has China moved away from the orthodox socialist system of public ownership of the means of production towards a regime of private property rights?
