A socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics: The accounting annual report of China Mobile

Abstract

Since the economic opening reform in the 1970s, China has undergone significant ideological change that has shifted the country’s focus from a planned economy to a market economy. The co-existence of a market economy with a socialist political regime offers a unique opportunity to explore the role of accounting in contemporary China. Using critical discourse analysis, we have analysed the production, distribution, and consumption of a leading Chinese SOE’s annual report that has a dual readership (i.e. Chinese and Western). We demonstrate that accounting reflects and helps naturalise the competing ideologies of a global market economy with strong government control.

Keywords:

• Annual report
• China
• Socialism
• Market economy
• Critical discourse analysis

Notes

1 Deng Xiaoping was purged within the CPC three times (in 1934, 1967, and 1976) before he regained the power in 1978 (Shambaugh, 1993).

2 Since the annual report studied in this research is China Mobile’s 2010 report, the analysis here is concerned with the management composition in 2010. In fact, it was not until June 2011 when Xi Guohua was appointed as vice president by the Department of Organisation and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, that Wang’s position as the committee secretary was taken over by Xi. Interestingly, Xi also serves as the vice minister at the MII concurrently, again indicating the state dominance over China Mobile.

4 The term “IR” here stands for investor relations.

5 Due to the original size and the clarity of the image, we have only chosen part of the webpage as Fig. 6. The original image can be delivered in private upon readers’ request.

6 For the same reason outlined in footnote 6, there is only one director’s profile in Fig. 6. Readers are welcome to request the original image from the authors. In addition, the identical biographies of other directors can also be found in China Mobile Limited’s 2010 annual report.

7 As shown in Fig. 6, they are Dr. LO Ka Shui, Mr. Frank WONG Kwong Shing, and Dr. Moses CHENG Mo Chi.

8 comes from The Book of History, comes from The Great Learning.