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(D.C. Clarke). 1 Full citations of statutes mentioned in this article appear following the list of references. 2 This will often be so. Chinese firms without dominant state ownership have been shown in several studies to outperform firms with dominant state ownership (

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Since the early 1990s, China has come a long way in legislating the foundational rules for its reformed economy. Virtually all of the important areas ± contracts, business organizations, securities, bankruptcy and secured transactions, to name a few ± are now covered by national legislation as well as lower-level regulations. Yet an important feature of a legal structure suited to a market economy is missing: the ability of the system to generate from below solutions to problems not adequately dealt with by existing legislation. The top-down model that has dominated Chinese law reform efforts to date can only do so much. What is needed now is a more welcoming attitude to market-generated solutions to the gaps and other problems that will invariably exist in legislation. The state's distrust of civil-society institutions and other bottom-up initiatives suggests, however, that this different approach will not come easily.

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