Trailblazing jurist, educator dies at 94

Jiang Ping, a well-known jurist and legal educator, died at age 94 in Beijing on Tuesday, the China University of Political Science and Law said.

A trailblazer in the field of civil and commercial law, Jiang served as president of the CUPL, and was also a tenured professor at the school.

According to the CUPL's website, Jiang was born in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, and studied at the journalism department of Yenching University, the predecessor to Peking University, from 1948 to 1949.

From 1951 to 1956, he studied at the Law School of Moscow State University.

After graduating, he started his teaching career at the CUPL. He mainly focused on introducing new civil and commercial legal knowledge, such as on shareholding and corporate systems.

From 1988 to 1990, he was president of the CUPL.

In 1988, he was elected as a deputy to the seventh National People's Congress, China's top legislature, and later became a member of the NPC Standing Committee.

In 2001, Jiang was named a lifelong professor of the CUPL.

His notable achievements include participation in formulating laws such as the General Provisions of Civil Law, Trust Law, Contract Law and Property Law.

He also provided guidance on the compilation of the Civil Code, a fundamental law for regulating civil activities, which took effect in January 2021.

The CUPL said that Jiang made exceptional contributions to China's legal education, theoretical research in law and the building of a law-based society, and called Jiang's death a huge loss to the university and to the law and education academia in China.