Guo Shuqing, the watchdog of China’s US$40 trillion banking and insurance industry, has the toughest job in global finance
- China’s banking system is twice the size of America’s
- The task of managing that system is getting harder by the day, as China faces its most uncertain economic environment since the global recession a decade ago, a state of affairs further complicated by the civil unrest in Hong Kong
Two months into his tenure as China’s top banking regulator, Guo Shuqing did something his staffers had never witnessed from a senior Communist Party leader.
Speaking in Beijing to officials and industry executives from across the country, he pledged to resign if he failed to snuff out the excesses that had been accumulating in China’s US$40 trillion banking system for almost a decade.
“This is a leader’s responsibility,” Guo said, according to people familiar with the April 2017 speech who asked not to be named discussing an internal matter.
His comments jolted the audience. Not only is it extremely rare for a high-ranking Chinese official to admit the possibility of defeat, but those listening also understood the enormity of Guo’s task. As steward of the world’s largest banking system – it’s twice the size of the US’s – the 63-year-old arguably has the hardest job in global finance.
And it’s getting more difficult by the day. China faces its most uncertain economic environment since the global recession a decade ago, a state of affairs further complicated by the civil unrest in Hong Kong.
Guo’s priorities – keeping China’s financial system stable and chipping away at the implicit state guarantees that underpin everything from asset-management products to bank deposits – are maddeningly contradictory.