Monitor | Stock market under Guo shows how politics clashes with reform

Hopes are riding high that China's new leaders will live up to their promises and press ahead with much-needed economic reforms.

But a look at the mainland's stock market and how it is regulated provides an object lesson in just how difficult implementing real reform can be.

In October 2011, when the former China Construction Bank chairman Guo Shuqing was appointed to head the China Securities Regulatory Commission, hopes soared that a brave new era was dawning for equity markets.

With his experience in the commercial sector, Guo was widely perceived as someone who understood the way markets should work. He was seen as just the chap to shake up the stock supervisor and place market regulation on a new footing for the future.

A shake-up was badly needed. Unlike regulators in other countries, the CSRC was not concerned either with ensuring a level playing field for market participants or with protecting investors' interests.