ABSTRACT
Perhaps no single area of Chinese law encapsulates so thoroughly as does contract law the interplay between legal and economic reform. The enactment of the Unified Contract Law (UCL) in 1999 represented a culmination of nearly twenty years of contract law development and reflected a combination of local economic policy issues and a process by which international legal forms were adapted to Chinese conditions. This chapter will examine the tensions inherent in the Unified Contract Law of the PRC, which to a large extent was the product of borrowing the form and structure of foreign contract laws but which operates in the context of a vibrant local legal culture.
