(...) Prof. Dr. Thomas M.J. Möllers has maintained close relations with China for many years. For this reason, the Research Centre for Chinese Law at the Faculty of Law was founded on April 24, 2016. The research centre RICE sees itself as a link between German, European and Chinese law and practice.

The meeting focused on the Chinese government's biggest legislative reform project: an overall codification of Chinese civil law. As a first step, a new General Codification of Civil Law was adopted by the National Assembly of China on March 15, 2017. In her opening speech, Prof. Dr. Chongling Huang, representative of the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China, spoke of the "beginning of a new epoch in Chinese legal history" and underlined the importance of a comparative legal view of the reform. The General Section was significantly influenced by German law. The conference took this as an opportunity to discuss methodological and comparative law aspects of the Chinese and German regulations and to address similarities and differences between the two legal systems. The driving force behind the conference was to promote mutual understanding of the Chinese and German legal systems and thus to lay the foundation for further comparative law research.

Seven renowned Chinese scholars presented the fundamental innovations of the reform in the areas of general legal principles, natural and legal persons, civil liability and the law of enrichment. The lectures were complemented by co-lectures by professors from Augsburg, which opened up a comparative legal perspective on the German Civil Code. From the Faculty of Law, Prof. Dr. Möllers was joined by Prof. Dr. Raphael Koch (represented by Finn Mrugalla), Prof. Dr. Michael Kort and Prof. Dr. Martin Maties. A conference volume will make the results of the successful discussions accessible to the expert public. The conference was financially and organisationally supported by the Bavarian Academic Center for China (BayChina) and the Augsburg Center for Global Economic Law and Regulation (ACELR).