China’s top regulators unveiled radical reforms for the country’s asset management industry this month, in a push by the government to defuse the investment risks accumulating across the Asian giant’s financial system, the Financial Times reports. The reforms, which are also designed to improve standards of investor protection and to set the asset management industry on a sustainable growth path, follow huge increases in debt and leverage that threaten the sustainability of the Chinese economy. Retail investors in China have been plowing money into lightly regulated or unregulated wealth management products that offer higher yields than bank deposits. These wealth management products are issued by banks, insurance companies and other financial groups that are supervised by different regulators, which has led to massive growth in so-called non-standard credit assets or the shadow banking sector. Historically, financial companies were able to circumvent restrictions on their activities under the previous regime, but this should no longer be possible under new rules.