Finance, Rule of Law and Development in Asia ─ Perspectives from Singapore, Hong Kong and Mainland China

Defining a global financial center (GFC) as “an intense concentration of a wide variety of international financial business and transactions in one place,” Hu, Vanhullebusch, and Harding cite the clear potential for Asian cities such as Shanghai to be an even greater financial center. They present narratives regarding the precise means of achieving the desired conditions. Hong Kong and Singapore’s success emphasizes such factors as effective anti-corruption measures, availability of information and transparency, and the common law, as well as comprehensive financial regulation in the administrative law sense. The Chinese government set up the Shanghai Free Trade Pilot Zone (SFTPZ) as a testing ground for innovation, with the following objectives: over two to three years of piloting reforms, it is mandated to further the opening up of financial services by exploring Renminbi (RMB) convertibility under capital account items; creating a framework to ensure the reliability and stability of financial transactions; facilitating financial market access in accordance with China’s commitments under international agreements. They note that there is no substitute for real legal certainty, good regulation and governance, fairness and consistency in settling disputes, and protection of the security of transactions. This is the real lesson of Singapore and Hong Kong, and the real challenge for China. Annotation c2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Prof. Dr. Jiaxiang Hu, Ph.D (2003) in Law, University of Edinburgh, is Professor and Director of the Asian Law Center at the KoGuan Law School of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Dr. Matthias Vanhullebusch, Ph.D (2011) in Law, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), is Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Asian Law Center at the KoGuan Law School of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Prof. Dr. Andrew Harding, Ph.D (1987) in Law, Monash University, is Professor and Director of the Centre of Asian Legal Studies at the Faculty of Law of the National University of Singapore.