On December 4, the Macro-Finance Salon (No. 196) and the fourth seminar of the “Financial Development as a Boost to the Chinese Path to Modernization” series was held online. The event was co-hosted by the International Monetary Institute (IMI) and the Department of Monetary Finance, School of Finance. Zhang Xiaojing, Dean of Institute of Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences delivered a keynote speech on “Regulating Wealth Accumulation Mechanism to Promote Chinese Path to Modernization”. The salon was joined by Guo Jianwei, senior research fellow of the Institute of Finance and Sustainability and former Editor-in-Chief of China Financial Publishing House, Professor Dai Wensheng, School of Finance, RUC, and Guan Qingyou, Director and Chief Economist, Rushi Advanced Institute of Finance. The salon was moderated by Zhao Xijun, Member of IMI Academic Committee and Co-Dean of Academy of China Capital Market, RUC.

Zhang Xiaojing delivered a keynote speech on “Regulating Wealth Accumulation Mechanisms to Promote Chinese Modernization”. Zhang pointed out in his remark, the 20^th CPC National Congress raised a new term “to regulate the mechanism of wealth accumulation”, responding to the new requirements for wealth accumulation and distribution in Chinese modernization. On the one hand, it is impossible to build a strong socialist modern country without a solid material and technological foundation, which illustrates the importance of wealth accumulation. On the other hand, common prosperity is an essential requirement of socialism and a key feature of Chinese modernization, for which wealth allocation is an unavoidable challenge to be tackled. Globalization, financialization, and digitalization have promoted economic prosperity, meanwhile reshaped the mechanism of wealth accumulation, and also brought various levels of wealth divisions. Looking back at the history since the establishment of New China, the pattern of wealth accumulation has witnessed great changes. Before reform and opening up, the emphasis on high-level deposits, low consumption and compulsory savings led to the accumulation of wealth in the government, while the growth of wealth was limited in the private sector. After reform and opening up, people began to accumulate personal wealth at a very fast pace. The pattern in wealth allocation also changed. Before reform and opening up, wealth distribution was tilted towards government, while relatively equal in the private sector. There was no severe division. After reform and opening up, marketization and the development of non-state economy had driven wealth distribution towards the private sector, with the accumulation speed exceeding that of the government, but there was severe division in the private sector. In order to promote Chinese modernization, it is necessary to form a sustainable wealth accumulation mechanism, focus on middle and low-income groups, and pay equal attention to wealth accumulation and distribution.