Retrospect and prospect of public transit privatization in China

As the most populous country in the world with a heavy reliance on public transit, China's public transit privatization has a global significance. China's post-Mao economic reform and establishment of market-oriented economy have stimulated its public transit privatization at a very fast pace. The largest Chinese cities have been spearheading the implementation of different privatization measures, such as granting franchises, company merger, company reorganization, public/private partnership, responsibility systems, and many others. All these privatization efforts have yielded preliminary successful results, even though some obstacles are encountered. In the future, new privatization-related laws are expected to be enacted, government functions and business functions would be further separated, privatizing other public transit services besides operation would take place, and some negative impacts associated with privatization would be mitigated.