The PRC Contract Law and Its Unique Notion of Subrogation

This paper briefly introduces a recent history of the development of the Chinese contract law. It then analyses various specific contract law issues including formation of the contract, liability for breach of contract and the notion of subrogation. This paper finds that PRC’s contract law presents a hybrid version with key concepts from both Common law tradition and the Civil law tradition. This hybrid is however unique in the way of enforcing contracting parties’ rights/obligations in many contract matters. Unfortunately, without a proper case recording system in the jurisdiction, the unique Chinese legal method is somehow difficult to solve complex contract issues. This paper then argues further that there is a need to update the current system in the law of contract, particular in dealing with the right of subrogation.