Internationalization of public accounting: Chinese experience

The main objective of this paper is to examine the development of public accounting in China. While a brief review of the historical evolution of Chinese public accounting is presented in the first section, the paper focuses on the major progress of internationalization of public accounting in China in the most recent years, that is, improving qualification standards for professional accountants; unifying the professional associations of public practitioners; establishing Chinese Independent Auditing Standards; enforcing professional ethics and continuous education programs; reforming the administration of CPA firms; and opening the domestic accounting market up to foreign professionals. Both the motivation and impedance to those developments are analyzed. It is concluded that, to date, the gap between Chinese public accounting and the practices in the rest of the world has been narrowed down remarkably, which will benefit both Chinese and international business communities.