Chinese officials press foreign banks to share executive pay details
Jun 16, 2022
Beijing [China], June 17 : Chinese officials are asking the foreign investment banks to share the pay details of senior executives.
As per local media, Chinese authorities are enforcing Chinese President Xi Jinping's "common prosperity" agenda, while another reason could be that large international investment banks have employed many princelings for many years to help open the door to the Chinese market for these corporations.
On Monday, the media reported that big banks like Credit Suisse Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc, and UBS Group were summoned one after another by Chinese officials and were asked to report details on how they compensate their top bankers.
Many princelings of China for many years have helped open the door to the Chinese market for these corporations, such as, Wen Jiabao's daughter Wen Ruchun once served as an executive at Credit Suisse and JPMorgan Chase, and Zhu Rongji's son Zhu Yunlai also worked at Credit Suisse.
These are just some of the cases that are under public scrutiny, there can be many more from the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao eras when corruption was rampant and give-and-take deals were abundant, the local media added.
Books like 'Red Roulette' and many other incidents show the relationship between corporations and officials of the Communist Party of China is common and hence this move can have more to it than what meets the eye.
Earlier, the foreign banks were also asked by Chinese authorities to trim the wages of the bank officials. The move comes ahead of the 20th National Congress of CPC to be held in 2022 where President Xi Jinping is all set to secure his third term in power.
The Chinese regulators have warned global major investment banks including Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and UBS not to reward their top bankers too lavishly, the country's latest effort to rein in risks and promote "common prosperity," reported The Standard, a Hong Kong publication.
Xi has continued to call for the common prosperity of the country's entire population amid the massive crackdown on big tech giants in China.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission had summoned executives to discuss bankers' pay, people familiar with the meetings said, characterizing the discussions as a highly unusual, if not unprecedented, regulatory intrusion into foreign banks' personnel decisions.
Further, it is also an effort to inject ideological rigor into the new economy after years of explosive growth and exert more control over which industries prosper as part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's economic vision.
