China's Restructured Commercial Banks: Nomenklatura Accountability Serving Corporate Governance Reform?

CHINA'S EMERGING FINANCIAL MARKETS: CHALLENGES AND GLOBAL IMPACT, M. Avery, M. Zhu and J. Cai, eds., Singapore: John Wiley and Sons, Asia, 2009

43 Pages Posted: 3 Mar 2009 Last revised: 8 Apr 2014

Date Written: November 1, 2008

Abstract

The ongoing reform of China's state-owned commercial banks has long included a significant corporate governance reform component, with: formal "corporatization" from the mid-1990s, the establishment of separate boards of directors and shareholders' meetings at newly-corporatized entities, a new Company Law in 2006, foreign and Chinese strategic investment, and public listings on foreign and Chinese markets. This article reveals the parallel phenomena of formal corporatization and corporate governance reform, on one side, and the persistence of Chinese Communist Party Committees in the direction of corporatized PRC state-owned enterprises, on the other, and speculates on the extent to which the pre-existing nomenklatura (Party personnel appointments) system might nonetheless operate in support of management accountability -- even in cases where the public float is exceedingly thin and minority or public shareholders have few real protections or legal remedies.

Keywords: China, financial institutions, commercial banks, company law, corporate governance

JEL Classification: F58, G20, G34, K22, K23, N25, P34

Suggested Citation

Howson, Nicholas Calcina, China's Restructured Commercial Banks: Nomenklatura Accountability Serving Corporate Governance Reform? (November 1, 2008). CHINA'S EMERGING FINANCIAL MARKETS: CHALLENGES AND GLOBAL IMPACT, M. Avery, M. Zhu and J. Cai, eds., Singapore: John Wiley and Sons, Asia, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1351853

Nicholas Calcina Howson (Contact Author)

University of Michigan Law School ( email )

701 South State Street
3234 South Hall
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-3091
United States

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