Sheng Hua (born in 1953) was appraised as the first wave of Chinese National Experts with Outstanding Contributions in 1986. Other titles include: Incumbent Executive Vice President of China Overseas Chinese Merchants Federation; Vice Chairman of Beijing Overseas Chinese Federation; Vice President of China Economic System Reform Research Association; Senior Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast University; Dean of National Development and Policy Research Institute of Southeast University; Economic Management of Southeast University Honorary Dean of the College; Professor of Dong Fuzhen Institute of Economic and Social Development of Wuhan University; Director of Academic Committee; Member of the Expert Advisory Committee of the Leading Group of the State Council on Deepening the Reform of the Medical and Health System.
Professor Hua is one of the main proposers and promoters of three important reforms (dual price system, state-owned asset system, and split share structure reform) that affect China's economic reform process. In September 1984, at the first National Conference on Youth Economic Work, he was introduced to fame by the State Council for proposing the idea of a double-track price reform with his peers. In mid-1985, a research team led by Professor Hua innovatively proposed the establishment of the State-owned Assets Management Bureau, the establishment of a state-owned asset management system, the recruitment of corporate managers and the implementation of the asset management responsibility system reform plan. After reporting to the State Council, the proposal was organized throughout the country as a pilot project, which lead to the establishment of China's first state-owned asset management bureau in 1988. In February 1998, he first raised the issue of the reforming A-share market inclusion rights and the split of shares, arguing that the Chinese stock market needs to rectify system deficiencies, redefine property rights and use non-tradable shares to restore non-tradable shares as soon as possible. In 2005, the central government successfully initiated a shareholding reform. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential economists in the Chinese stock market and has repeatedly sent signals before the stock market turning at the peak or bottom.
In 2008, Professor Watson and his long-term collaborators published a long article again in commemoration of China’s 30 years of reform and opening up, arguing that China ’s institutional reforms in the next 30 years have gradually changed from economic reforms to social and political reforms. The implementation of the national action plan for therural to urban migration has become the central link from economic reform to social reform.
Professor Hua has won the Sun Yefang Economics Award, the first prize of excellent papers of the central state organs, and the China Economic Theory Innovation Award in 2011. In recent years, he has published several monographs including China’s Reform: What Has Been Done Right and What Has Not, The False and True Problems of the Chinese Stock Market, and The Trap of Urbanization Transformation and Land.
After the famous Vanke versus Baoneng Controversy in 2016, he serially published articles Why I do not Support the Opinions of Major Shareholders and Vanke Model: The Controversy of Control and Corporate Governance. The articles gave us a detailed description of the causes and effect of the Vanke dispute, provided unique insights and suggestions on the reform of state-owned enterprises and the governance of listed companies, made a comparative analysis of the corporate governance situation in mainland China and other countries and regions, and proposed suggestions to improve on China’s system design of listed company governance and securities market norms. The core of the debate ultimately comes down to the corporate governance structure and the institutional construction of capital market norms
In 2020, at a crisis time when the Covid-19 pandemic was raging around the world, Professor Hua released a series of analytical articles on China’s epidemic prevention process. Those articles insists on using logic as the guideline, taking the law as the criterion, and using facts as the basis to review the entire process of this extremely difficult, tragic and tenacious war of the epidemic prevention and control in China.
