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In Red Capitalism, Carl Walter and Fraser Howie detail how the Chinese government reformed and modeled its financial system in the 30 years since it began its policy of engagement with the west. Instead of a stable series of policies producing steady growth, China's financial sector has boomed and gone bust with regularity in each decade. The latest decade is little different. Chinese banks have become objects of political struggle while they totter under balance sheets bloated by the excessive state-directed lending and bond issuance of 2009.
Looking forward, the government's response to the global financial crisis has created a banking system the stability of which can be maintained only behind the walls of a non-convertible currency, a myriad of off-balance sheet arrangements with non-public state entities and the strong support of its best borrowers--the politically potent National Champions--who are the greatest beneficiaries of the financial status quo.
China's financial system is not a model for the west and, indeed, is not a sustainable arrangement for China itself as it seeks increasingly to assert its influence internationally. This is not a story of impending collapse, but of frustrated reforms that suggests that any full opening and meaningful reform of the financial sector is not, indeed cannot be, on the government's agenda anytime soon.

"The most important financial book of the year."
— James Grant, editor, Grant's Interest Rate Observer

“In their new book, "Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China's Extraordinary Riser" Carl E. Walter and Fraser IT. Howie paint a troubling portrait of the Chinese economy and financial system. Despite the nation's mind-boggling growth and images of gleaming skyscrapers and luxury cars, the authors say the Chinese growth model is flawed and fragile, and they warn about substantial risks accumulating in its banking system.”
– The New York Times & International Herald Tribune Asian edition, January 2011

“If Walter and Howie are right, China may be approaching a period when it can no longer hide the systemic flaws in its banking system; the more profound and problematic question the authors of Red Capitalism want their readers to ask is what this means for China as a whole. The answer will likely impact not just the Chinese, but people around the world as well.”
– Asia Times Online, January 2011

Carl E. Walter

Carl E. Walter has worked in China's financial sector for the past twenty years and has actively participated in many of its financial reforms. He played a major role in China's groundbreaking first overseas IPO in 1992 as well as the first listing of a state-owned enterprise on the New York Stock Exchange in 1994. He held a senior position in China's first and most successful joint venture investment bank where he supported a number of significant domestic stock and debt underwritings for major Chinese corporations and financial institutions. More recently, he helped build one of the most successful and profitable domestic security, risk, and currency trading operations for a major international investment bank. Fluent in Mandarin, he holds a PhD from Stanford University and a graduate certificate from Beijing University. Carl is a longtime resident of Beijing.

Fraser J. T. Howie

Fraser J. T. Howie has been trading, analyzing, and writing about Asian stock markets for nearly twenty years. During that time, he has worked in Hong Kong, trading equity derivatives at Bankers Trust and Morgan Stanley. After moving to China in 1998, he worked in the sales and trading department of China International Capital Corporation followed by a stint with China M&A Management Company. He is a regular commentator on China and its financial system, having spoken in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Singapore, and Cambridge. He is currently a managing director at a leading Asia-Pacific brokerage firm in Singapore helping international investors invest in both the Indian and Chinese markets.