TITLE:
The Recent Amendment to China’s Consumer Law: An Imperfect Improvement and Proposal for Future Changes
AUTHORS:
Zhixiong Liao
KEYWORDS:
Consumer, Improvement, Amendment, Law, China
JOURNAL NAME:
Beijing Law Review,
Vol.5 No.3,
September
25,
2014
ABSTRACT: Recently,
an Amendment Act (“the Amendment”) was made to China’s core legislation on
consumer protection—the Consumers’ Rights and Interests
Protection Law (“Consumer Protection Act 1993”). The Amendment comes into force
on China’s “Consumers’ Day” of 2014. The Amendment brings some great and
significant changes to the principal Act in response to the need of China’s
changed and changing market and society. This paper analyses the most
significant changes and argues that the Amendment is far from being
satisfactory, in that some important issues/problems including, inter alia,
the want of a clear legal definition of “consumer”, are left unaddressed. It
also articulates the rationale for special protection to consumer and proposes further
amendments including a “good” definition of “consumer” that shall be adopted in
the future as soon as practical.