On June 6, 2017, the first workshop on the “Essentials of Social Law” was held at CASS Law Institute in Beijing. The workshop, jointly organized by CASS Law Institute and the NPO Center of Peking University, was attended by over 20 experts and scholars from various universities, research institutions and law firms in the country. Professor Xue Ninglan, Head of the Social Law Department of CASS Law Institute, presided over the opening ceremony. She pointed out that the main purpose of the workshop is to explore and understand the new legal relations in contemporary society and effectively supplement traditional legal theory on the basis of the rich Chinese practice and from the perspectives of such basic elements as the constitution of subjects, the sources of rights, and the forms of responsibilities. Professor Jin Jinping of the Law School of Peking University gave a keynote speech at the workshop. In the speech, she pointed out that social property, tripartite relationship, the state’s payment obligation and the objectives of NPOs are the basic categories of social law. On the basis of these categories and from the perspectives of the emergence, definition, normative significance and ownership analysis of social property, she put forward the idea that social property is a concept relative to public property and private property and its main purpose is to determine the ownership of property of social organizations that have such functions as social security, social assistance and social insurance in the context of social law relationship. Professor Zhao Hongmei of the Social Law Research Institute of China University of Political Science and Law, Professor Ranhao of the Social Law Department of CASS Law Institute, and Professor Zhang Cheng of the Guanghua Law School of Zhejiang University each made a comment on the keynote speech. Afterwards, the participants of the workshop carried out free discussions on various issues relating to the theme of the workshop.