China Splits Top Jobs at Central Bank, Adding Another Reformer<br />By KEITH BRADSHERMARCH 25, 2018<br />BEIJING — Less than a week after naming Yi Gang as the governor of China’s central bank, leaders in Beijing have unexpectedly put a different<br />man above him as the Communist Party secretary at the central bank, five people familiar with the decision said on Sunday.<br />Jan Svejnar, the director of the Center on Global Economic Governance at Columbia University, said<br />that China’s rapid shake-up in top financial regulatory jobs indicated that the country’s leaders were determined to act on weaknesses in the financial system.<br />In that analogy, Mr. Guo will essentially become the chairman of China’s central bank while Mr. Yi, as governor, will act like a chief executive.<br />While Mr. Guo and Mr. Yi both have reputations as avid financial reformers who want to address China’s<br />addiction to debt-fueled economic growth, Mr. Guo has much better political connections.<br />By adding the role of party secretary of the central bank, Mr. Guo emerges with even broader responsibilities over the country’s financial system.<br />Mr. Guo has already run the China Banking Regulatory Commission for the past year,<br />and a week ago, the National People’s Congress voted to fold the country’s insurance regulatory agency into the commission.<br />Chinese officials have publicly acknowledged that they need to address rising leverage but contend<br />that the country’s minimal foreign debt, strong economic growth and increasingly stringent financial regulation mean that they have ample time to defuse the problem without a sharp slowdown in economic growth.
