The main legislative organ is the National People's Congress in Beijing. The provincial, municipal and other levels of government have some autonomy in creating regulations but they must not contravene the national laws, however in many cases this adaptation of central laws to local conditions may lead to misinterpretations. Since the "open door policy", the central Government has made various changes to put the law in line with international practice and expectations. The transformation has been a very slow and gradual process, very much by trial and error. Laws and regulations are often termed "provisional or interim" and changed as soon as they are found unsatisfactory. Notwithstanding all the efforts to change and bring the system in line with international practices, China's legal system is still greatly influenced by the Chinese Communist Party. This gives rise to the possibility of a legal dispute being resolved on political rather than legal grounds. Another remaining problem is the lack of transparency, which often translates into that many rules and regulations are not published and instead circulated as internal documents, often catching foreign business people unprepared.
