Today, the basic mode of categorization of legal persons is still one of the major issues of controversy in the codification of civil law in China. In order to realize the functions of value conveyance and institutional expression, the legal person system in Chinese Civil Code should adopt the method of "analytical categorization", rather than that of "narrative categorization", and take logical adequacy, certainty and essential differences as the three main criteria for the selection of basic mode of categorization of legal persons. The mode that categorizes legal persons into for-profit legal persons and not-for-profit legal persons has been abandoned by Japanese Civil Code because it cannot meet anyone of the three criteria, neither should the mode that categorizes legal persons into corporate legal persons and non-corporate legal persons be accepted because it does not meet the criteria of certainty and essential differences. Only the mode that categorizes legal persons into incorporated associations and incorporated foundations, which is reinterpreted and based on the structure of legal person, can meet all the three standards. However, this mode of categorization can be deemed reasonable and feasible only if it is supported by the system of public legal persons and the system of open incorporated foundations. The future Chinese Civil Code should abandon the concept of "donation legal person" as a basic category of legal person and adopt the basic mode that categorizes legal persons into incorporated associations and incorporated foundations. |