The Role of Foreign Financial Institutions in China's Financial
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Wilfrid Laurier University Scholars Commons @ Laurier Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive) 2016 Agents of Change: The Role of Foreign Financial Institutions in China’s Financial Transformation Since the early 1990s Anton Malkin [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd Part of the Asian Studies Commons, Finance and Financial Management Commons, International Business Commons, International Relations Commons, and the Political Economy Commons Recommended Citation Malkin, Anton, "Agents of Change: The Role of Foreign Financial Institutions in China’s Financial Transformation Since the early 1990s" (2016). Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive). 1835. https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/1835 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive) by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Agents of Change: The Role of Foreign Financial Institutions in China’s Financial Transformation Since the early 1990s. by Anton Malkin DOCTORAL DISSERTATION Submitted to the Department of Global Governance in the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy in Global Governance Wilfrid Laurier University © Anton Malkin 2016 All Rights Reserved. Supervisor: Eric Helleiner Committee: Hongying Wang, Gregory, T. Chin, Randy Wigle External Reviewer: Justin Robertson. Thesis Abstract What role have foreign financial institutions (FFIs) played in China’s financial evolution since the early 1990s? My research finds that FFIs, which include foreign commercial and investment banks, as well as private equity (PE) firms, have played a role in China’s financial evolution in three respects. First, US financial institutions have leveraged their influence in the US government, their ties to other business groups, and mobilized connections with the Chinese elite, to help China to join the World Trade Organization in 2001. This outcome created a relatively open formal, legal environment to foreign actors—helping in the cause of liberalizing China’s financial system. Second, and much more significantly, FFIs have aided in Premier Zhu Rongji’s push to reform the Chinese banking system and state-owned enterprises in general by creating linkages between the Chinese state and global finance and, in the process, helping to create a vast market of overseas Chinese equities in Hong Kong, New York, and elsewhere. Thirdly, and also very consequentially, FFIs trained Chinese financial professionals and precipitated the flow of ‘returnees’—Chinese professionals returning to work in the Mainland after studying finance in Anglo-American institutions and moving on to work in finance on Wall Street, London, and Hong Kong—back to the Mainland, where the latter collaborated with Chinese officials to build up a native PE industry. In this way, FFIs have also helped to transfer Anglo- American financial expertise to Mainland China. By helping Chinese policymakers to use Anglo-American financial expertise to reform corporate finance, banking, and private equity, not to mention insurance, investment banking, and a host of other sub-industries, as well as to fund Chinese SOEs and state banks in their time of need (in the late 1990s and early 2000s)—and to do so while maintaining state ownership over these enterprises—FFIs have, ironically, precluded the need for policymakers to give them a greater role in China’s domestic financial system. This process alludes to Vernon’s (1971) notion of i obsolescing bargaining. From a theoretical point of view, FFIs’ role can be seen as one of internationalizing China’s financial system, not liberalizing it. I define the concept of internationalization as a process of connecting a country’s economy to the global economy through particular channels or linkages— through adopting international practices or by making use of globalized space, such as global cities or production chains. This is described as being distinct from liberalization, which implies the withdrawal of the state from determining market outcomes and the removal of legal, regulatory, and informal barriers to competition. ii Acknowledgements I would like to sincerely acknowledge the support and helpful advice of everyone that made this dissertation come to fruition. I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Eric Helleiner, who saw this project from conception, to its many different directions and iterations, and all along provided the indispensable encouragement that made the completion of this thesis possible. Likewise, I could not do without the support and advice of Hongying Wang and Greg Chin on conducting fieldwork in China: on how to work with the daunting practical limitation of on-the-ground research in the country, and on how to bear out the implications of my findings. Additional thanks is owed to Vic Li, who helped to make my research at the University Services Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong much briefer and more efficient than it otherwise would have been. Many thanks as well to Mark Krueger and Sanja Panday at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing for the insightful conversations on China’s financial system and for the many initial contacts that helped to get my field research off the ground. Many thanks to my great friends in Beijing, who helped me to settle down and make the city my home for over a year and a half. Thank you, 成慧, 成聪, Tomas Granqvist, and anyone else that helped me to adapt to life in Beijing. Thanks is also owed to Logan Wright for the many great conversations on China’s financial system, which helped me to make an important transition in the direction of my field research. Thanks, as always, to Bessma Momani for all the advice and support throughout my academic career. Thanks to my friends and family in Toronto, who saw me through all of the most difficult personal obstacles to completing this project. But the greatest share of gratitude is owed to my wife, Aileen Pou. To say that I could not have done this without her constant support and encouragement would be an egregious understatement. To her, I dedicate this work. iii Author’s Declaration: I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this dissertation. This is a true copy of the dissertation, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my dissertation may be made electronically available to the public. iv Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS III TABLES AND FIGURES 1 AGENTS OF CHANGE: THE ROLE OF FOREIGN BANKS IN CHINA’S FINANCIAL TRANSFORMATION SINCE THE EARLY 1990S. 2 1.0 INTRODUCTION 2 2.0 METHODOLOGY 7 3.0 THESIS NARRATIVE AND CHAPTER OUTLINE 11 3.1. ORGANIZATION AND OVERVIEW 11 3.2. THE ROLE OF EACH CHAPTER IN THE BROADER NARRATIVE 12 4.0 THE INDEPENDENT VARIABLE 23 5.0 CONCLUSION 26 CHAPTER 1: THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE RESEARCH ON FOREIGN FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS TO CHINA STUDIES AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY LITERATURE 28 1.0. INTRODUCTION 28 2.0 CHINA’S POLICY PREFERENCES: WHAT DOES THE LITERATURE SAY? 29 2.1 WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT CHINA’S POLICY PREFERENCES? 32 3.3 THE PROBLEM WITH ‘LIBERALIZATION’ 37 3.0 DISTINGUISHING INTERNATIONALIZATION FROM LIBERALIZATION 41 3.1 CHINA’S ECONOMIC REFORMS: THE BIG DEBATE 42 3.2. FINANCIAL GLOBALIZATION AND THE STATE 44 3.4 DEFINING INTERNATIONALIZATION 46 4.0 THE POWER OF TRANSNATIONAL FINANCIAL ACTORS AND THE STATE 54 4.1 WHY DO FFIS MATTER? 54 4.2 FFIS AS NON-STATE ACTORS 57 4.3 OBSOLESCING BARGAINING AND FFIS IN CHINA 58 5.0 CLARIFICATIONS AND LIMITATIONS 59 5.1 LIMITATIONS 59 5.2 CLARIFICATIONS 61 5.2.1 COUNTERFACTUALS 63 6.0 CONCLUSION 66 CHAPTER 2: FFI LOBBYING AND CHINA’S WTO ACCESSION 68 1.0 INTRODUCTION 68 2.0 BACKGROUND 70 3.0 LOBBYING IN CHINA: A SHORT REVIEW 74 4.0 LOBBYING IN THE US 78 4.1 LOBBYING IN CONTEXT 81 5.0 ALLIANCES-BASED LOBBYING. 84 5.1 TRIANGULAR ALLIANCES 85 v 5.2 CROSS ISSUE ALLIANCES 88 6.0 CONCLUSION 93 CHAPTER 3: FROM EXTERNAL LIBERALIZATION TO SYSTEMIC BARRIERS: HOW LOBBYING VICTORIES THAT LED UP TO CHINA’S WTO ACCESSION TURNED OUT TO BE HOLLOW. 96 1.0 INTRODUCTION 96 2.0 CONTEXTUALIZING FFI LOBBYING SINCE 2001 98 3.0. METHODOLOGY 102 3.1. LIMITATIONS 102 3.2. CATEGORIES. 105 4.0 FROM LEGAL BARRIERS TO SYSTEMIC OBSTACLES. 107 4.1 WTO COMPLIANCE 109 4.2. WHAT DO FFIS COMPLAIN ABOUT? 111 4.3 LIMITATIONS ON FOREIGN OWNERSHIP 120 4.4 THE SECURITIES SECTOR 123 5.0 FFI-TO-GOVERNMENT LOBBYING. 129 7.2 HSBC’S RETAIL BANKING PUSH 130 7.3 CITIGROUP’S NEAR MISS 132 6.0 SYSTEMIC OBSTACLES: CHINA IN A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE 138 7.0 CONCLUSION 142 CHAPTER 4: SPATIAL INTERNATIONALIZATION AND THE UNIQUE ROLE OF FFIS AS A BRIDGE BETWEEN CHINA AND GLOBAL FINANCE 145 1.0. INTRODUCTION 145 2.0. HONG KONG AS AN OFFSHORE HUB 148 2.1. CONCEPTUALIZING THE ROLE OF HONG KONG IN CHINA’S FINANCIAL INTERNATIONALIZATION 148 2.2. WHY HONG KONG? 152 3.0. EXPLAINING SPATIAL INTERNATIONALIZATION: THE DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL ORIGINS OF CHINESE OVERSEAS IPOS. 162 3.1 DOMESTIC PROBLEMS, INTERNATIONAL SOLUTIONS 165 4.0 THE CHINA MOBILE LISTING 169 4.1. FFIS AT THE INTERSECTION OF CHINA’S INDUSTRIAL-FINANCIAL COMPLEX 172 5.0. LOOKING AHEAD: STRATEGIC EQUITY INVESTMENTS AND OFFSHORE LISTING OF CHINA’S AMCS. 180 6.1 CONCLUSION 184 CHAPTER 5: FFIS’ ROLE IN TRANSFERRING AND LOCALIZING ANGLO-AMERICAN EXPERTISE 187 1.0 INTRODUCTION 187 2.0. RECAP AND BACKGROUND: FFIS IN CHINA FROM THE CCP’S PERSPECTIVE. 188 3.0 JOINT VENTURES AND STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS 196 3.1 INSURANCE COMPANIES 198 3.2 INVESTMENT BANKING.