The Corporate Governance Reform of State-owned Commercial Banks in China

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to identify the inadequacies and weaknesses of the current corporate governance system and structure in Chinese state-owned commercial banks by performing a comprehensive analysis of both the internal and external governance mechanisms of banks, and by learning from the advanced experience of banking in developed economies as well as international economic and banking institutions. The research commences with a conceptual approach to banks, in terms of banking and the corporate governance. It then examines the fundamental theories related to the banking and the corporate governance. The research shows that China has undergone an array of profound economic and banking reform programmes over that past three decades. Since 1995, a new governance system has been established in China’s state-owned commercial banks through institutional reforms, which have emphasized addressing the ownership, asset quality and governance issues of the banks. Subsequently, the research demonstrates that the reform efforts have made important changes in the ways that the government conducts its control and influence over the state-owned commercial banks, shifting a system from direct control and influence of business and management to control by indirect forms. The research attempts to explore the potential problems in China’s banking laws, present the corporate governance reforms of Chinese state-owned commercial banks and create an appropriate framework of corporate governance for China’s state-owned commercial banks from internal and external aspects.