The market-based interest rate reform remains a core part of China’s financial reforms, and an important topic of both theoretical and policy studies. This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the process and logic of China’s interest rate reform from a historical perspective. It is structured along three lines, i.e. loosening interest rate controls, establishing market-based interest rates, and building an effective interest rate adjustment mechanism, and systematically reviews the characteristics and evolvement of the reform process. The book further explores the lessons and challenges of the reform by examining China’s development stage and auxiliary reforms needed, and offers policy recommendations on how to further push forward the reform.

As editors, first of all, we would like to thank the authors of this volume for their conscientious work that makes this volume possible. Many ideas in this book were first explored at an international symposium on financial market reforms in China, which was organized by the Chinese Economists Society. We would like to express our thanks to the sponsors of the conference: Center for International Business Education and Research, China Reform Foundation, MetLife, Hausman & Shrenger LLP, Lincoln National Insurance Company, City National Bank, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California and The Chinese Economists Society. The Lincoln Foundation also provided generous support to this project through a grant made to Claremont Graduate University where this book was finalized.

China is in the throes of two transitions: from a command economy to a market-based one and from a rural, agricultural society to an urban, industrial one. So far, both transitions have been spectacularly successful. China is the fastest-growing economy in the world, with per capita incomes more than quadrupling since 1978, achieving in two generations what took other countries centuries. Although swift growth and structural change have resolved many problems, they also have created new challenges: employment insecurity, growing inequality, stubborn poverty, mounting environmental pressures, rising costs of food self-sufficiency, and periods of macroeconomic instability stemming from incomplete reforms. Unmet, these challenges could undermine the sustainability of growth, and Chinas promise could fade. China 2020, a seven-volume set, examines China's recent history, where it is today, and the path it should follow during the first two decades of the 21st century. The volume in the set entitled, Clear Water, Blue Skies: Chinas Environment in the New Century explores the relationship between economic growth and the environment. Chapters review the harmful effects of all forms of pollution and discuss ways of securing higher environmental living standards. Particular attention is given to urban areas and the impact of pollution on health conditions.

What might interest rate liberalization do to intermediation and the cost of capital in China? China's most binding interest rate control is a ceiling on the deposit rate, although lending rates are also regulated. Through case studies and model-based simulations, we find that liberalization will likely result in higher interest rates, discourage marginal investment, improve the effectiveness of intermediation and monetary transmission, and enhance the financial access of underserved sectors. This can occur without any major disruption. International experience suggests, however, that achieving these benefits without unnecessary instability, requires vigilant supervision, governance, and monetary policy, and a flexible policy toolkit.

China's extraordinarily rapid economic growth since 1978, driven by market-oriented reforms, has set world records and continued unabated, despite predictions of an inevitable slowdown. In The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?, renowned China scholar Nicholas R. Lardy argues that China's future growth prospects could be equally bright but are shadowed by the specter of resurgent state dominance, which has begun to diminish the vital role of the market and private firms in China's economy. Lardy's book arrives in timely fashion as a sequel to his pathbreaking Markets over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China, published by PIIE in 2014. This book mobilizes new data to trace how President Xi Jinping has consistently championed state-owned or controlled enterprises, encouraging local political leaders and financial institutions to prop up ailing, underperforming companies that are a drag on China's potential. As with his previous book, Lardy's perspective departs from conventional wisdom, especially in its contention that China could achieve a high growth rate for the next two decades—if it reverses course and returns to the path of market-oriented reforms.

In 1978, China embarked on a gradual but far-reaching reform of its economic system. This paper focuses on the achievements so far in reforming the financial sector, the legal framework for financial transactions, the payments system, and the monetary policy and foreign exchange system. It also analyzes the tasks ahead to achieve the goals set in these areas for the year 2000.