China's current legal system remains in the socialist mould but due to the open-door policy which was initiated in 1979 Chinese law has become more international, incorporating elements of foreign contract law, civil law, criminal law and constitutional law, among others.
An overview of the Chinese legal system reveals it to be an organic, comprehensive and unified whole consisting of well-defined divisions or branches of laws and varieties of functional organs. In this respect it resembles the civil law tradition as opposed to the common law system.
