The Chinese legal system, which stems from the Civil Law System, is quite different from that of the Common Law System with its duality of Common Law and Equity. Trusts have been developing as part of Equity for centuries and they have become the most important institution of Equity. In the course of accepting and transplanting trusts into China, Chinese law drafters had to face the conflicts between the two different legal systems and they made a compromise by accepting the trust concept from the Common Law countries in order to mingle it with the Chinese civil law legal system, and to let it function optimally in China.

To understand the Chinese Law of Trusts deeply and to understand what compromises have been made, an outline of that Law will be introduced, followed by a comparative study of the Chinese Law of Trusts and the law of trusts in the Common Law countries, such as Australia, Britain and the United States.