China. The role of the government and academics in the IFRS convergence process of Chinese accounting standards

Abstract

Regarding China’s convergence with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), contrary to concerns on the resistance associated with the socialist nature of the country and its economy, the process seems to be relatively smooth compared to other current and former socialist countries. In this paper, we seek to conduct a "Critical Discourse Analysis" (CDA) on government discourses and academic publications related to the evolution of China’s national accounting standards within the context of the Chinese economy and that of the globalisation. The findings indicate that the Chinese domestic accounting researchers appear to be closely attached to the government, who plays a leading role in this event, and that the efficient convergence with the IFRS is largely because of Chinese authority’s strong willingness to promote a neoliberal ideology through this process, in the hope of speeding up China’s financial and economic integration into the global market.