Cha retires to China

When she resigned last June after ten years as a top Hong Kong securities regulator, Laura Cha said she was ready to take things “a little easier.”

So much for that idea. Last month, as Cha wrapped up her duties as deputy chairman and executive director of Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission announced that she would become one of its four vice chairmen.

Cha, 50, begins work in Beijing this month. She,ll be stepping into the center of a regulatory fray: CSRC and government officials are tussling over how hard to crack down on rampant price manipulation and insider trading on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. Many officials worry that a severe crackdown would trigger a stock slump, undermining the country’s plans to list more state-owned enterprises.

But analysts believe that Cha’s appointment shows that China is determined to clean up its markets. Cha, a Hong Kong citizen who renounced dual U.S. citizenship for her new job, is the first person from outside the mainland to be hired to a full-time government post. “From a regulator’s point of view,” she says, “a crackdown usually is a good thing if there are malpractices and misconduct.” Still, the University of Wisconsin law graduate recognizes that “reform cannot be carried out in a vacuum or without regard to the outside environment.”

Cha’s precise role at CSRC has yet to be defined, but she hopes to help frame listing policies and address corporate governance issues. Formerly a corporate lawyer in San Francisco and Hong Kong, she has never worked in China, although she negotiated with government authorities about the listing of state-owned mainland enterprises in Hong Kong.

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