On January the 1st, 2021, the first Civil Code in the history of the People's Republic of China took effect. The process of codification of civil legislation began in the PRC back in the 1950s. However, due to various circumstances, the Code wasn't adopted during the 20th century. Only in virtue of the initiative of Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, the work on the content of a large codified act of civil law was successfully completed and the Chinese parliament approved the Code in May 2020. A kind of "economic constitution", which is understood as the Civil Code, is designed to regulate a wide range of civil law relations, comprehensively protect the legal rights and interests of a wide range of participants. The emergence of the Civil Code in the legal system of China was a major event in the history of the country, it was carried out as a part of a large-scale campaign to strengthen the rule of law and rule the state on the basis of the law. The content of the Civil Code of the PRC is of significant theoretical and practical interest both for the Russian legal and sinological sciences, and for all compatriots working with China and in China. The research of the Code requires a deep immersion in the Chinese political and legal reality, an understanding of the foundations of public administration in a new era, and also an awareness of the specifics of legal culture, the legal consciousness of Chinese citizens and law enforcement practice.