Corporate Governance and Economic Development

4It Is Our Way With Western Characteristics – Lessons From China

DOI: 10.4324/9780429443459-4

The endurance of centralized and government-directed decision-making is the defining feature of the Chinese state. The fundamental document informing China’s corporate governance rules had been the Company Law. Its content is modeled on international standards to define duties of directors, promote accountability of executives, transparency of operations, and rights of shareholders. The unique Chinese aspect of the Law stems from its recognition of the supreme authority of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). When Deng Xiaoping initiated the first economic reforms in the late 1970s, he did not opt for comprehensible structural political changes. Rather, ...