Wang Jiafu

Wang Jiafu (; February 1931 – 13 July 2019) was a Chinese legal scholar. He served as Director of the Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and was elected an academician of the CASS. A leading authority on civil law in China, he was a member of the Legal Committee of the 8th National People's Congress and a member of the Standing Committee of the 9th National People's Congress. He played a major role in designing China's new legal system after the Cultural Revolution, and was awarded the "Pioneer of Reform" medal in 2018.

Early life and education Wang was born in February 1931 in a mountainous village in Nanchong, Sichuan, Republic of China. He moved to Chongqing at age ten, where he completed his primary and secondary education.

In August 1953, Wang graduated from China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing. He pursued graduate studies in the Soviet Union, and became a legal researcher at the Institute of Law, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (then part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) after returning to China in 1959. He emphasized the crucial need for legislation to prevent the politically powerful from profiting from the free market, especially during China's transition from a planned economy to a market economy. In 2018, the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening, the Chinese government awarded Wang the "Pioneer of Reform" medal.

Wang died on 13 July 2019 at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing, at the age of 88.