ABSTRACT
Residents’ committees in urban areas and villagers’ committees in rural areas are designated in the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China as “mass organizations of self-government at the grassroots level.” The substance of the independence of juridical persons provided in the General Principles and the General Provisions can be analyzed according to two relations that juridical persons usually have: the relationship between a juridical person and the state and the relationship between a juridical person and its members. The relationship between a juridical person and the state has an intimate bearing on the historical background of why and how the Chinese legal system adopted the concept of a juridical person. All existing juridical persons in China have limited liability status, and the members are only responsible within the range of their investment. A characteristic feature of juridical persons in China is that the designation can only be used when the subject is engaging in "civil conduct".
