This paper uses historic institutionalism to look at how Chinas financial sector,and its banking sector more specifically,has changed following external crises.Three of those external crises are identified:the collapse of Soviet Russia,the 1997 Asia crisis,and the 2007 Global Financial Crisis (GFC).It is argued that each of these crises was followed by a distinct period of deeper reform.A deepening of reform not necessarily means reform in the same direction:we argue that the period after 2008 sees a departure from a Chinese "regulatory state" model,back to more developmental tendencies (Pearson 2005; 2007; Gottwald/Collins 2011).This underlines the adaptability of Chinese policy-making.