Opinion | China’s raid on its Wall Street to keep many bankers awake at night as Beijing probes top institutions
- Disciplinary watchdog will send inspectors into China’s top 25 financial institutions in the coming weeks to look for signs of corruption, negligence and disloyalty
- Former China Huarong Asset Management chairman Lai Xiaomin was executed earlier this year after he was convicted of corruption in a case involving 1.8 billion yuan (US$278 million)
The news that China’s disciplinary watchdog will send inspectors into the country’s financial regulators and its top state-owned financial institutions to look for signs of corruption, negligence and disloyalty could soon be keeping some Chinese bankers awake at nights.
In the coming weeks, disciplinary officials will be parachuted into China’s top 25 financial institutions to ask questions, review complaints and reports, knock on doors and open files and locked cupboards. This would be like sending hundreds of FBI agents and federal prosecutors onto Wall Street to look for dirty deals.
The inspection is seen as routine as Communist Party cadres in China’s state financial system are subject to the same scrutiny, but this inspection could also be special as the collusion of money and power comes under special attention to answer many unanswered questions.
Given the track record of China’s previous probes into various provinces and other systems, the inspections will not end in vain. In the past, more than 60 per cent of the clues or reasons to initiate disciplinary probes came from inspection groups.