China's Top Regulator Woos Investors

Carrie Pan is about as intrepid as they come. Since she began investing in Chinese stocks six years ago, the 29-year-old Shanghai accountant has seen almost half the value of her portfolio evaporate, including a 40 percent loss last year alone. Undeterred, Pan recently bought 1,000 shares of Yang Quan Coal Industry Group. “I believe stocks will rise,” says Pan, watching her holdings on a computer screen in her two-bedroom apartment on a recent afternoon of maternity leave. “Guo has already done lots of things to support the stock market since he took office, and he is very keen on improving the market’s performance.”

That would be Guo Shuqing, who in October was appointed chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the equivalent of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. A fluent English speaker, Guo is also a former vice governor of the central bank and most recently was chairman of China Construction Bank, the nation’s second-largest lender by market value. His challenge is modernizing China’s capital markets so that they can better support the country’s $6 trillion economy.