Moody's Corporation has taken a 49% stake in a joint venture with China Cheng Xin Credit Management, one of a few large local ratings providers. The move is the first foray into the Chinese market by the New York-based ratings firm, the Financial Times reported. Fitch Ratings' previously had a partnership with China Cheng Xin but that project failed a couple of years ago. Raymond McDaniel, Moody's global chairman, told reporters in Beijing he expects the new venture to be a "long-term" project but warned that "ratings agencies are never going to be able to identify and prevent scandal and fraud. We cannot act as a fraud police." Meanwhile, Standard & Poor's, which has not yet started doing credit ratings for the domestic market but researches them closely, released its ranking of the nation's 200 largest companies this week. The state-owned oil groups topped the ranking while S&P found that domestic airlines as well as low-cost manufacturing giants like Kelon, TCL and Lenovo performed poorly last year.