| Electronic Commerce (EC) has greatly affected the traditional economic mode, as well as the existing method of people and their value judgment. Law is a kind of tool to resolve the problems in the current world. EC has brought legal scholars great challenges. Particularly after China has joined WTO, different Chinese legal scholars hold quite different opinions toward EC law in terms of the cognition and studies of EC. In my opinion, the legal validity of EC contract (electronic document) is the decisive problem related to the dispute. We should not do research on EC contract regardless of current contract theories and try to construct a new theory mansion. This paper sets the study of the legal validity of the EC contract in the traditional contract theory system and in the comparison of the two legal systems, trying to look for the theoretical cause and path for the establishment of the legal validity of the EC contracts. Part One. The concept and its characteristics of the EC contractsThere is no definition of EC contract in Chinese contract law, and other countries and international organizations in the world have not made a clear and definite definition of EC contract, either. Even the typical model laws like Unified Electronic Transaction Code of the United States and Model Electronic Commerce Law by the United Nations International Trade Law Committee have not provided the definition of EC contracts. In respect of legal research, it is necessary to define the concept of EC contract, and it is good for the researchers in this field theoretically. In my opinion, the EC contract is an "agreement for the purpose of the benefits between natural persons, enterprises or other organizations to establish, change and terminate the civil rights and the duties through electronic network". On the one hand, the EC contract has the fundamental characteristics of the traditional contracts; on the other hand, the EC contract has entirely different characteristics from the traditional contracts, such as: obscure identity of the parties; technical characteristic of the process of contract establishment; difficulty to guarantee business secrets in the contract; non-paper form of the EC contract, etc. As for an EC contract, its legal validity is quite different from the traditional contracts from its establishments to its coming into force, for which the main reason resides in the requirements for proof and the techniques of an EC contract and the evidence for its content confirmation.Part Two. Coming into existence of EC contractsFirst Boundary of coming into existence and coming into force of EC contracts Like traditional contracts, the EC contracts have a problem of boundary between coming into existence and coming into force of EC contracts. We should not regard the new-established contract as a validated one. Along with the promulgation of Contract Law and the deep study of Contract Law field in the lawmaking process, it is generally agreed that we should distinguish coming into existence and coming into force of a contract and that they are different terms in the process of contract-making. Coming into existence of a contract only leads to a legal binding force, but the coming into force of a contract will bring about the contract's legal validity. Besides this aspect, the legal prerequisites of establishing and validating of a contract are also different.Second Coming into existence of an EC contractThe principles for determining whether the meaning expressed through network is an offer or an offer invitation are similar to those of traditional contracts. No matter how special the EC contract is, the innate character of EC contract is the same as that of the traditional contract, that is, it is an exchange and consistence of idea expression. Compared with an offer, it is easier to make certain of an acceptance more easily. But in the process of EC contract establishing, the way of acceptance should be different, which depends on the requirements in the process of giving an offer.Th...
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