ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book suggests that the institutions of the state involved with law making have gained in power at the expense of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In the courts any nascent trend toward judicial independence that might have emerged from the legal rebuilding of the early 1980s was stifled by the CCP apparatus’ resistance to a Central Committee directive to remove local party officials from participation in the daily work of the courts. The book describes how the Supreme People’s Court has, in effect, enacted basic legislation in an Opinion that interprets the General Principles of Civil Law. It shows that the principal means of settling contract disputes between enterprises is mediation, which permits disputes to be more politicized than does adjudication.
