With China’s rapid economic development and improving legal system, some clauses in the current Criminal Law no longer meet the requirements of social development and need to be improved through amendments and supplements by the National People's Congress.

The amendments of Criminal Law refer to the modifications and supplements made by the National People’s Congress and its standing bodies on the law, the current version of which was enacted in 1997.

Since then, China has passed nine amendments.

Amendment I to the Criminal Law

The first amendment was passed at the 13th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People's Congress of the People’s Republic of China on Dec 25, 1999.

Aims:

To punish crimes of disrupting the order of the socialist market economy and ensure the smooth progress of socialist modernization.

Highlights:

1. Whoever conceals or deliberately destroys financial vouchers, financial account books or financial statements, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to a fixed-term imprisonment or criminal detention of under five years, and/or be fined anywhere from 20,000 yuan ($3,160) to 200,000 yuan.

2. An employee of a state-run company or enterprise who is seriously irresponsible or abuses power, causing its bankruptcy or serious losses to the company or enterprise and heavy losses to the interests of the state, shall be sentenced to a fixed-term imprisonment of no more than three years or criminal detention.

3. Whoever establishes, without the approval of the competent authorities of the state, a commercial bank, securities exchange, futures exchange, futures brokering company, insurance company or other financial institution, shall be sentenced to a fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and/or shall be fined no less than 20,000 yuan but no more than 200,000 yuan.

4. Whoever fabricates and spreads false information to adversely affect stock or futures exchange transactions, disrupt the stock or futures exchange market shall, if the consequences are serious, be sentenced to a fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years or criminal detention, and/or be fined no less than 10,000 yuan but no more than 100,000 yuan.

Amendment II to the Criminal Law

Amendment II to the Criminal Law was adopted at the 23rd Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Ninth National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China on August 31, 2001.

Aims:

To punish the crime of reclaiming land by destroying forest and the crime of recklessly occupying or arbitrarily using forested land, and to protect forest resources.

Highlights:

Whoever violates the regulations on land administration, unlawfully occupies cultivated land, forestland or other land used for agriculture, and changes the use of the occupied land, if the area involved is relatively large and a large area of such land is damaged, shall be sentenced to a fixed-term imprisonment of no more than five years or criminal detention and shall also, or shall only, be fined.