The Joint Venture Law of the People's Republic of China: Preliminary Observations

The author discusses the reasons behind China’s Joint Venture Law and the affect the law will have on Chinese modernization and the foreign companies and countries involved. The article begins with a discussion of the various ways China has decided to finance its modernization movement. The author also addresses how the Chinese government has reconciled the allowance of foreign capitalist investment with the long-standing communist policy of self-reliance. The author then discusses China’s implementation of this joint venture law. China has provided a legal framework that will require additional actions to fully define many aspects of this law. The rest of the article analyzes several areas of the the joint venture law including property protection, equity issues, ownership matters, profit repatriation, tax information, technology issues, and dispute resolution. An appendix provides the unofficial English translation of the law’s text.