The Formation of Contract under the New Contract Law of China

중국(中國) 통일계약법상(統一契約法上) 계약(契約)의 성립(成立)

A contract is made when both parties have reached agreement, or they are deemed to have. After contract the law recognizes rights and obligations arising from the agreement. In order to discover whether agreement was reached between these two parties, we have to analyse the process of negotiation. Recently The People's Republic of China legislated a New Contract Law, which has come into effect since 1st of October 1999. This Law adapts the rules of United Nations(Vienna) Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and the Unidroit Principles for International Commercial Contracts. And this law is now widely enforced to commercial transactions between individuals, enterprises or other economic organizations of the People's Republic of China and foreign enterprises. Therefore, the foreigner who wish to make a sales contract with Chinese should understand the rules of New Contract Law of China. According to this New Law only a contract which contain offer and acceptance is valid and binding, and it is also pointed out that terms of contact must be certain. Though an oral contract is usually equivalent to a written one, in a case of commercial transactions written contract with signature is desirable. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the new rules of this Law and the new features of their application to commercial transactions in China.