ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the performance of China's domestic banking system as background information. It focuses on analyzing the discretion that China may have in its choice of possible measures to ensure the stability and development of its domestic banks in line with the principles contained in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The contemporary banking system in China has developed from the initial one-bank system that dominated China's pre-reform era before 1978. According to the Central Bank Law, the People's Bank of China assumed the functions of the monetary authority, the bank of banks, the bank of the government, and banking supervision authority. State-owned capital property and stock-holding capital property are the two major types of capital property found in China's commercial banking system. In China, with its underdeveloped financial systems, maintaining control on capital account convertibility will help to evade the GATS rules on market access and national treatment.
