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China Economics Guide

This guide contains information useful for those researching Economic, Business and Finance matters about China. It houses both subscription based material, as well as freely available information from government and other sources.

Law and Legislation


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Chinese Legislation in English

There is no comprehensive or up to date collection of Chinese laws in English on open access websites. Subscription databases have the best collections. Note that translated laws are never official.

SUBSCRIPTION RESOURCES (UniMelb staff & student access)

PKU Law - the English version of this platform contains legal information intentionally tailored to the needs of foreigners and foreign organisations working in China. It includes:

  • Laws & Regulations: comprises over 20,000 laws, regulations, rules, judicial interpretations, local regulations, and local rules in more than ninety legal areas. Its collections include:
    • All laws adopted by the National People's Congress (NPC) and the NPC Standing Committee from 1949 to the present 
    • All the administrative regulations promulgated by the State Council from 1949 to the present
    • Most of the important administrative rules or orders promulgated or approved by the agencies under the State Council and independent agencies such as the Securities Regulatory Commission; 
  • Gazettes (titles only) - browsable and searchable index of official publications containing regulations and documents related to the legislative history of regulations, such as explanations, reports, deliberations, speeches, circulars and notices.  
  • Major WTO legal rules relating to China

​More information on the English contents of PKU Law.

Westlaw China - the English database includes more than 20,448 important laws, regulations and international treaties. The database can be searched, and browsed by type of law or topic. The Laws & Regulations tab includes:

  • Laws of the National People's Congress and Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
  • Administrative Regulations
  • Ministerial Regulations
  • Local Regulations
  • Military Regulations

See more on the legislation content on Westlaw China, the comparison of Chinese and English content, and the User Guide on searching Westlaw China.

The Foreign Law Guide (UniMelb staff & student access) provides an alphabetical list of Chinese laws by topic - each topic provides links to full text laws and gazettes (in Chinese only).

 

OPEN ACCESS RESOURCES

The National People's Congress Database of Laws and Regulations is a full text collection of the laws enacted by the NPC and its Standing Committee and administrative regulations by the State Council. It can be searched or browsed.

 

​ChinaLII is a work in progress that contains English translations of the Constitution, laws, regulations and normative documents. Although the site is in Chinese, if you hover the mouse over any of the headings on the home and subsequent pages, you will see the English translation of the heading. Laws are arranged by topic and then by date. To see an English law or regulation, once on the law's webpage, if an English translation exists, the title will be in English with a link beside it - this will link to an English version.  

 

The english.gov.cn website of the State Council of the People's Republic of China contains English translations of nearly 40 major national laws and regulations (mostly related to doing business in China), and an up to date list (titles only, not full text) of the State Council Gazettes from 2000 to current.

 

The China Law Translate website provides translations of Chinese legislation into English.  This is 'crowd-sourced' database, like Wikipedia, where individuals translate a law. It is a well respected and up to date resource, but currently quite incomplete.

 

Laws of the People's Republic of China - via AsianLII – contains an A to Z list of many laws of the PRC derived mainly from government websites including ChinaLaw (Information Centre for Legislative Affairs Office of the PRC State Council) and the Laws and Regulations pages of the ChinaCourt (Supreme Peoples' Court). Warning: This database has not been updated since 2007.

Chinese laws in Chinese

OPEN ACCESS RESOURCES

The Chinese Regulations Express pages of the official Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council website has a complete and up-to-date collection of Laws, regulations etc.

​ChinaLII is a work in progress that includes the Constitution, laws, regulations and normative documents. Laws are arranged by topic, then date.

SUBSCRIPTION RESOURCES (UniMelb staff & student access)

PKU Law - the Beida Fabao - Laws & Regulations Database (Chinese Version) is far more comprehensive that the English version. It includes all the laws and regulations and other legal information promulgated by the Chinese central government and most of local governments since 1949. It also includes:

  • Annotated Chinese Laws, in which more than one hundred Chinese laws are annotated article by article to help readers understand the meanings of these laws.
  • Two-way hypertext links, in which, not only the laws and regulations mentioned in another law or regulation are marked with hypertext links but also use hypertext links to link all the related laws, regulations, cases, and law review articles together.
  • More information on the Chinese content of PKU Law.

Westlaw China provides more than 1 million laws and regulations promulgated by Chinese government agencies at both the central level and the level of province, municipality directly under the Central Government and autonomous region since 1949.