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

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.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 43

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

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

Accepted Paper Series