According to Article 153 of the General Principles of Civil Law of People's Republic of China (PRC), "Force majeure refers to an objective phenomenon that the parties cannot foresee, avoid and overcome."
Unforeseen: It is required by law that the event that constitutes force majeure must be that the parties cannot foresee whether the event will happen when concluding the contract. Under normal circumstances, there are two different standards for the general parties to a contract to judge whether they can foresee an event: one is the objective standard, that is, under certain circumstances, the parties to a contract should foresee what normal people can foresee; If the foresight of such an event requires some special knowledge, the parties to the contract should foresee it as long as it can be foreseen by people with normal professional knowledge. Another criterion is subjective, that is, whether the parties to a contract should foresee in a specific case is judged according to the subjective conditions of the actor, such as age, intellectual development, knowledge level, education level and technical ability.
Necessity: Although the parties concerned have taken timely and reasonable measures for possible accidents, it is inevitable that such accidents cannot be prevented objectively.
Invincible: the losses caused by unexpected events cannot be overcome by the parties concerned. If the consequences of an event can be overcome through the efforts of all parties concerned, then the event is not a force majeure event.
A new type of coronary pneumonia broke out suddenly. In order to protect public health, the government has taken corresponding epidemic prevention and control measures according to the standards of Class A infectious diseases. Enterprises stopped production and shut down, and residents were isolated at home. Judging from the suddenness of its emergence and formation, the extensiveness of its spread and influence, and the arduousness of controlling and blocking, the COVID-19 epidemic is indeed an unforeseeable, inevitable and insurmountable objective situation, which belongs to force majeure.