In the late Qing Dynasty, from 1898 to 1911, more than 60 economic regulations were promulgated, including comprehensive regulations "General Regulations for Merchants", "Company Law", "Trial Regulations for Trademark Registration", and industry management regulations "Trial Bank Regulations" "Mining Railway Company Articles of Association", incentive industry regulations, "Articles of Association for Promotion of Technology Awards", "Articles of Association of Award Companies", etc.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the word "company" became popular in Guangdong, Fujian and Taiwan. A large number of economic, trade and secret societies named after companies appeared among the people, such as the "Tiandihui" founded in Borneo. Lan Fong Company, Singapore's "Yi Hing Company", etc. During this period, the word company had a title or textual meaning, and was used within the scope of commercial customs. The company in the modern legal sense is undoubtedly the result of legal transplantation in the late Qing Dynasty. The economic invasion of Western powers and the Westernization Movement of the Qing government in the late Qing Dynasty led to the widespread development of the company organizational form in China, and legislation also confirmed and adjusted this.
In terms of reform and practical operation in the late Qing Dynasty. Ministers agree that constitutional monarchy models like Japan and Germany can both reform and maintain their dominance. After reform, Japan and Germany have embarked on the path of developing capitalism, and their assets have increased. Class power is growing day by day, but the reform is not complete, and the feudal power is still not small. This balance of class power is reflected in the superstructure, which adopts a constitutional monarchy.
The Qing government adopted a constitutional monarchy. In the Japanese and German methods, the plan to change the absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy was in principle considered from the perspective of conforming to the fundamental interests of the feudal rulers.
The minister who played a more important role in revising the law at that time was Shen Jiaben. A relatively enlightened minister in the Qing government, he had been an official in the Ministry of Justice for a long time, so he was familiar with traditional Chinese law and had been influenced by Western law. At that time, Yuan Shikai and Zhang Zhidong recommended him to be the minister of law revision. In practice, he was He is presiding.
China's old feudal laws have always made no distinction between civil and criminal laws, and there is no distinction between civil and commercial laws. After the government of the late Qing Dynasty established the Ministry of Commerce, and with the invasion of Western powers at the end of the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty's small-scale peasant economic model Suffering the impact, foreign companies set up factories in China, the trend of saving the country through industry emerged, and a large number of national enterprises emerged; under this historical background, there was an urgent need for relevant corporate laws to regulate and guide various corporate behaviors.
In 1904, The late Qing government promulgated the first written "Company Law" in modern Chinese history, as well as supporting laws such as "Bankruptcy Law", "Mining Charter", "Bank Regulations", etc., marking that China's modern company system was governed by government-supervised commercial companies and chartered companies. The system stage entered the standard company system stage.
This was the beginning of China's independent commercial laws, including 1908, when the Qing government hired Japanese law doctor Shida Kasutaro to draft commercial laws based on Japanese and German commercial laws. , the Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce revised it into the "Qing Commercial Law Draft" based on the commercial law investigations compiled by various chambers of commerce.
In December 1903, the Qing Ministry of Commerce promulgated the "Company Law". For the first time in the history of China's company law, a company has been clearly defined, that is, "Anyone who gathers capital to operate a business is called a company"; the company's articles of association have also been included in my country's company laws, "Anyone who establishes a company and registers it with the Ministry of Commerce must All contracts, rules and regulations for founding a company shall be submitted to the Ministry of Commerce for record"; in addition, the "basic principle that everyone is equal before equity" and "the principle that all companies are equal before corporate law" were also included, and the corporate enterprise model began. develop in China.