Yi Huiman, the former regulator of China’s equities market, is being investigated for disciplinary breaches, as the country’s long-standing anti-graft campaign extends into all corners of the financial industry, from banking to the stock market.
Yi, the chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) from January 2019 to February 2024, is being investigated by the Communist Party’s disciplinary unit for severe breaches of discipline, according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, which did not elaborate on the details of the investigation.
In China, the official language for suspected disciplinary breaches is often referred to as “economic crimes” in the statements announced by the anti-graft body. Yi’s probe was reported on Friday on Caixin.com, but the report was soon deleted from its website.
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A statistician by training, Yi would be the second watchdog regulator of China’s US$12 trillion capital market – the world’s second largest – to be investigated for graft in a decade and the third to be fired since 2016.
Wu Qing, nicknamed the “Butcher of Brokers”, took over as chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) in 2025 from Yi Huiman. Photo: SCIO alt=Wu Qing, nicknamed the “Butcher of Brokers”, took over as chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) in 2025 from Yi Huiman. Photo: SCIO>
His immediate predecessor Liu Shiyu was removed from the job in 2019, before investigations exposed a range of misconduct from accepting gifts and money to favouring stock sales from his hometown in Jiangsu province. In 2016, Xiao Gang was fired for bungling the regulator’s response to a US$5 trillion market rout that happened a year earlier.
The crackdowns underscore how President Xi Jinping is trying to clean up China’s financial system after elevating the industry into a strategically significant sector for a “financial superpower”, amid the heightened risk of financial decoupling with the US amid deteriorating US-China relations. Almost 300 Chinese companies valued at US$1.1 trillion listed on US stock exchanges are poised to find alternative listing venues amid the decoupling threat.
Yi was sacked after the A-share index plunged to a five-year low in 2024, which triggered a crisis of confidence among the 200 million-odd individual investors battered by fears about a shaky economy and deteriorating corporate earnings. He was replaced by Wu Qing, a former chairman of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the executive vice mayor of the city, in a reshuffle aimed at restoring investor confidence.
Liu Shiyu, the former chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), during a news conference on March 12, 2016. Liu was removed from the job in 2019. Photo: Reuters alt=Liu Shiyu, the former chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), during a news conference on March 12, 2016. Liu was removed from the job in 2019. Photo: Reuters>
“The CSRC is more than a securities watchdog in China because it has long been responsible for safeguarding the interests of small investors who put their lifelong savings in the stock market,” said Ding Haifeng, a consultant at the financial advisory firm Integrity in Shanghai. “Yi’s removal showed that he was not eligible for the job then.”
Yi, who turns 61 in December, has had an advisory role in government since he stepped down as regulator last year. He was a deputy director of the economic committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Beijing, an advisory body to the government.
Before taking over the top financial regulatory job from Liu, Yi was a career banker. He worked his way up the ranks of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China over three decades before rising to president of the world’s largest bank by assets in 2013. He was appointed the bank’s chairman in 2016, a job that carried the rank of a deputy Cabinet minister.
An outdoor electronic screen on the Lujiazui pedestrian overpass with the closing prices of the Shanghai Composite Index and the Shenzhen Component Index on August 18, 2025, in Shanghai. Photo: Getty Images alt=An outdoor electronic screen on the Lujiazui pedestrian overpass with the closing prices of the Shanghai Composite Index and the Shenzhen Component Index on August 18, 2025, in Shanghai. Photo: Getty Images>
Yi’s tenure as CSRC chairman coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic and China’s zero-Covid quarantines, which sent the economy into a tailspin. Fundraising and investments by venture funds went into a deep freeze, while onshore stock sales slowed to a trickle in Shanghai and Shenzhen.
During Yi’s five-year tenure, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 9 per cent, lagging behind the 87 per cent jump in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the 103 per cent jump in the S&P 500.
His biggest achievement was the CSRC’s overhaul of China’s process for initial public offerings (IPOs) into a so-called registration process that placed the onus on companies to disclose their finances. The reform, which simplified the approvals and was more aligned with global practices, was nonetheless blamed for flooding the capital markets with a glut of new shares.
The former chairman also led the establishment of the Star Market, China’s answer to the Nasdaq, on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in June 2019, just seven months after it was ordered to be set up by President Xi.
A Wenzhou native in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, Yi also coined the term “valuation with Chinese characteristics”, which advocated for investing in publicly traded state-owned enterprises that usually traded at a discount to stock prices.
