The General Principles of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China (Chinese

Chinese character

Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

: 中华人民共和国民法通则) is a law in the PRC

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 promulgated in 1986 and came into force in 1987. It is intended to create a consistent framework for civil law interpretation in the People's Republic of China, and is heavily influenced by the German Civil Code. Unlike most civil law

Civil law (legal system)

Civil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law and whose primary feature is that laws are codified into collections, as compared to common law systems that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different...

 jurisdictions, the PRC does not have a comprehensive civil code

Civil code

A civil code is a systematic collection of laws designed to comprehensively deal with the core areas of private law. A jurisdiction that has a civil code generally also has a code of civil procedure...

, and attempts to create one have proven difficult and controversial.