Trusts and the Chinese Civil Code: toward a new era of codification

Abstract Starting from 28 May 2020, China, which has long been considered a civil law jurisdiction, finally has its own Civil Code. However, among 1260 articles of the Code, trust is mentioned only once. From a perspective of comparative law, the trust’s appearance in the civil code has always been informative for observing its transplantation process. Thus, by investigating the five rounds of civil law codification in China over decades, as well as the considerable controversy regarding trusts and codification, this article attempts to discuss the reasons, implications, and influences of the legislative result of trusts in the Code.