Chinese Reception and Transplantation of Western Contract Law

The transformation of the People's Republic of China (China) into a market economy and its ascendancy into a global economic power increases the importance of studying its private laws (contract, torts, property, and unjust enrichment). The twin pillars of a market economy are private property and contract law. This Article will focus on the latter of the two pillars. The evolution of Chinese contract law provides an opportunity to study the influences of foreign laws and the formal transplantation of foreign and international law into a different cultural and legal tradition. China's formation of private contract law, beginning in the mid-1980s, is particularly interesting because of the breadth of foreign law influences involved in its development. However, the use and partial transplantation of a variety of sources can have unintended consequences. In the case of the Chinese Contract Law (CCL), it has led to a number of gaps and inconsistencies. This article reviews the notion of "double transplantation," which in China's case involved the adoption of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and the reuse of the CISG in drafting the CCL.