The Financialisation of the State Sector in China

After the 2013 Third Plenum, China adopted a series of top-to-bottom policies that increased the importance of financial instruments, creating a hierarchy of funds that invest in state-owned and mixed ownership firms. These policies have been combined with increased government control and stress on high-technology industrial policies. The result has been an increasingly interventionist government, steering increasingly important state firms through financial instruments. It will take time before the Chinese government recognises the risks in creating a new wave of financial excesses.