The Reception of Western Civil Law Theory and its Effect on Modern China. Die Rezeption der westlichen Zivilrechtswissenschaft und ihre Auswirkung im modernen China

Within a context of enormous political and economic change, starting with the law reform in the late Qing Dynasty and continuing through today, the formation and development of modern Chinese civil law has been deeply influenced by theories of Pandekten law, ex-Soviet law and Japanese law. The academic background of the first generation of Chinese civil jurists, most of whom had studied German civil law in Germany, and the unprejudiced help from Japanese jurists resulted in modern Chinese civil law thoroughly inheriting the basic juristic theory and content of German law – one sees the deep influence of the German Civil Code in the first Chinese Civil Code. Shortly after the founding of the People's Republic of China, in light of ideology, the development of Chinese civil law followed ex-Soviet civil law without distinguishing the reality of China, which was even ultraconservative in some aspects. At the time of the early open-door period, Chinese civil law was mainly influenced by the Japanese civil law, both positively and negatively. Nowadays, we are very glad to see that modern Chinese civil law has started to recognize and follow the theory of Pandekten law with reasonable consistency since 1995. However, Chinese civil law is still under the shadow of ex-Soviet civil law, which can be seen in the provisions of China's Property Law (Sachenrechtsgesetz). For the prosperousness of the Chinese market economy, the courage of revolution and innovation is called for in both the legislature and civil law academies.