Implementation of IFRS in a regulated market

The year 2007 may well be remembered as a milestone in the development of accounting and financial reporting standards in China, as it was the year that the country’s new, substantially IFRS-convergent, accounting standards became compulsory for selected companies. Having evolved from a closed regulatory culture inherited from the former Soviet Union, China’s move toward IFRS provides an interesting example of how globalization is gaining support from regimes once regarded as the least likely to be interested. China’s move also provides direct evidence on the question of whether IFRS can work properly in markets that are disciplined mainly by regulators rather than market mechanisms. This paper attempts to provide a descriptive analysis of Chinese accounting’s “bumpy road leading to internationalization” [Tang, Y.W., 2000. Bumpy road leading to internationalization: a review of accounting development in China. Accounting Horizons 14-1, 93–102].