Introduction

In the face of the Asian Financial Crisis, the Chinese government took a sequence of three inter-related policy measures to attempt to solve the crisis in Guangdong’s financial institutions, and prevent the spread of contagion to the rest of the country. During the Asian Financial Crisis huge problems emerged in Guangdong’s leading non-bank financial institutions. The Chinese central government was increasingly concerned about the difficulties within Guangdong’s financial institutions. In December 1997, shortly after the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis, the central government sent Wang Qishan, then President of the China Construction Bank, to become a member of the Guangdong provincial Party committee. Throughout the crisis Wang Qishan appeared frequently before the public and the mass media in Guangdong and Hong Kong. Surviving the crisis involved an intense policy effort by both the Guangdong and the central governments.