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

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.