Financial development and de-financializing in China

• This article builds on and contributes to the scholarship on financialization in the West by investigating the extent of financialization taking place in China, as well as examining the role of the state in the process of de-financializing.• This article first broadly considers the progress of finance capital or financial development in China. There has been some level of financialization taking place in China. On the other hand, since 2010, the government has been pushing back on the role or influence of finance by instigating a policy of ‘finance must serve the real economy’ by means of de-financializing.• State-owned or controlled financial institutions play an important role in the process of de-financializing as well as at a broader level, the role of countering the destructive effects of finance capital.• The article contends that, changes of policy, law and regulation towards finance and financial markets in China represent a new phase of economic development in China, which have also presaged a decline in the power of finance and financial markets, and an increase in the power of the state.• This article analyses data from 2003 to 2019 involving an analysis of 3,733 non-finance companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges as of 14 October 2020