Why China Is Still an ‘Agricultural’ State

In Shanghai there is a joke about Tilanqiao Prison 提篮桥监狱 that has circulated in financial circles for at least two decades. The walled compound in Hongkou, opened in 1903 by the foreign-administered International Settlement, for a time the largest prison in East Asia, is in fact the country’s ‘most prestigious’ institution of higher financial learning. ‘中国最高金融学府, ‘ ’China’s highest academy of finance.’ The nicknames have proliferated. ‘上财分校,’ ’the branch campus of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.’ ‘提篮桥总裁班,’ ‘the Tilanqiao executive program.’ ‘会计进修学院,’ ‘the accounting refresher academy.’The joke survives because it captures a perception. Inside Tilanqiao’s cell blocks were accountants who had cooked the books, brokers who had run pump-and-dump schemes, branch managers who had falsified compliance reports, fund employees who had front-run their own clients. Many came from the major finance schools, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Fudan, the returnees with…