Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 China's Financial Performance in Comparative Perspective
- 3 The Banking System: Flexible Institutions and Party Domination
- 4 Factional Politics and its Financial Implications
- 5 Factional Politics, Distribution of Loans, and Inflationary Cycles: Several Quantitative Tests
- 6 The Collapse of Discipline: The First Two Inflationary Cycles and the Fiscalization of Chinese Banks
- 7 The Height of the Politics of Inflation, 1987–1996
- 8 The Long Cycle: 1997–2006
- 9 Concluding Discussion
- Appendix on Data
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 China's Financial Performance in Comparative Perspective
- 3 The Banking System: Flexible Institutions and Party Domination
- 4 Factional Politics and its Financial Implications
- 5 Factional Politics, Distribution of Loans, and Inflationary Cycles: Several Quantitative Tests
- 6 The Collapse of Discipline: The First Two Inflationary Cycles and the Fiscalization of Chinese Banks
- 7 The Height of the Politics of Inflation, 1987–1996
- 8 The Long Cycle: 1997–2006
- 9 Concluding Discussion
- Appendix on Data
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
One of the most memorable interviews that I conducted in the course of researching for this book took place in a provincial capital along China's prosperous eastern coast. I interviewed the manager of an asset management company (AMC), which was established to recover the myriad nonperforming loans that had accumulated in China's state banks. Throughout the interview, he belabored the importance of central directives on reducing nonperforming loans (NPLs) in the banking sector. After Zhu Rongji, with the full backing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), had imposed a rigid nonperforming loan reduction quota on all Chinese banks, banks were scrambling to remove NPLs from their balance sheets. The manager himself had to meet a cash recovery quota for the NPLs under his charge or face dismissal. He accomplished this by speedily selling the collateral tied to the NPLs to private and foreign investors. When asked about the fate of NPLs not backed by collateral three or four years down the road, his response was simply, “That's for my successor to worry about. I plan to get out after a couple of years with my bonus.” Following the interview, he asked if I was hungry. As it was late in the afternoon and my lunch had been a simple bowl of noodles from a street vendor, I thought I could treat him to dinner and we could continue the conversation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Factions and Finance in ChinaElite Conflict and Inflation, pp. 1 - 20Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007