I am honoured to be the first one to introduce the topic on civil society and market economy. I intend to briefly review first of all the emergence of civil society in western countries and secondly in China. Next I will make some remarks on legal control of civil society，both in the West and in China. But let me first make a few remarks on the concept of civil society.

As you all know，the term of civil society is a rather generic one. Because of the time restraint I will not review and compare the various definitions given by social scientists from different disciplines. For our purposes，civil society，from an institutional perspective，refers to institutions，organizations that do not belong to the state and the business world. To be more concrete，this includes voluntary association，interest organizations，and non-profit organizations of many kinds，philanthropic institutions and all kinds of non-governmental organisations. Apart from these institutions，some also consider civil society includes certain behaviour，such as social and political movements，and other forms of social participation and engagement. Furthermore，the values and cultural patterns associated with them also come within the scope of the concept of civil society.