Courting Financial Innovation

The third plenary session of the Communist Party's 18th Central Committee issued a clear call for major reforms, including in two important areas: permitting the leasing of rural collective land and overhauls to financial regulation.

Nevertheless, recent moves by the government to make a show of targeting small ownership houses, those built on collective rural land but sold to urban buyers, and cracking down illegal fundraising seem to be contrary to the spirit of the reforms. The meaning of such conservative moves might be to preserve the economic order and avoid any disturbances on the eve of major reforms.