"Using the rise of the Chinese ‘shareholding state' as an example, this article attempts to extend the study of financialization from the economy to the state. It documents a historical and institutional process in which the Chinese state refashioned itself as a shareholder and institutional investor in the economy and resorted to financial means to manage its ownership, assets and public investments. I demonstrate that financialization of economic management in the Chinese state contain three processes: the introduction of shareholder values by the state to managing its asset, the expansion of state asset management bodies and the provision of structured investment vehicles by these institutions to fund fixed asset investment. By uncovering the mutually leveraging effect between sovereign power and finance, this study illustrates a politically endogenous model for the rise of finance in state-directed economies."

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