The world economy is facing unprecedented challenges brought by the still unfolding global financial crisis. At this critical juncture in history, China’s economic performance and financial stability are closely watched across the world. The current global economic downturn and the rigidities it poses on the growth prospects of any individual economy are a testing ground for the effects of China’s corporate governance reform and financial reform that have been taking place in recent years. It is now a proper time to assess whether these reforms have yielded meaningful results which can help China withstand and navigate through the most severe economic difficulties of our times.

This book provides a comprehensive and up to date review and critique of corporate governance reforms and related financial reforms in China during the country’s transition to a market economy, involving its enterprise, banking and capital markets sectors. China’s participation in economic globalization, symbolized by its accession to the World Trade Organization, is taken as a broad background to the country’s domestic reform agenda. By exploring the dynamics of China’s evolving corporate governance regime, this book presents an important country study of corporate governance reforms in developing and post-communist transition economies to show the possibility of alternative paths to the market.