Studies On National Interests In Accounting Internationalization

With the rapid development of economic globalization, the accounting internationalization has been making great progress. However, since IASC was founded, the road of accounting internationalization has been full of frustrations, whose reason is that the variance of national interests among countries is the important and key factor influencing the accounting internationalization. This paper tries to reveal the inherent nature of this factor historically and to explore the effective way to protect and extend the national interests of China in accounting internationalization.Firstly, this paper defines national interest as any need for a country to satisfy and protect its survival and development, which reflects both the situation of the international circumstances surrounding the country and the subjective judgment on national status establishment and which is the sum of the relationships among national authority, international cooperation and interest cognition. The natures of national interests include objectivity, subjectivity, dynamics and variability, and national interest is the integrated reflection of authority, system and cognition.The paper analyzes the economic consequences of accounting internationalization and the contents and forms of national interests. It is implied that the economic consequences include both sides from international and domestic either; the national interests in accounting internationalization include political interests, economic interests, cultural interests and security interests which have different forms respectively.Taking the accounting internationalization status of developed countries such as the United States (U.S.) and European countries and that of the developing countries in Eastern Union as an epitome of accounting internationalization all over the world, this paper analyzes their histories of accounting internationalization and interest protection strategies. As the paper pointed, the U.S. modified its strategy on accounting internationalization on time with the change of its accounting environment, and actively dominated in both the restructure of IASB and the joint projects of convergence with IFRS based on its strong capital market and accounting strength so as to input its will into IFRS. European Union tries to achieve the maximum interest of itself through the measures of establishing rigorous advisory and regulatory agencies of accounting, pursuing internal harmonization at low cost, setting up two-double endorsement mechanism on adopting IAS/IFRS and actively promoting both the convergence between IAS and US GAAP and the equivalent accounting standards. At the same time, Canada, Australia, Japan and Eastern Union Countries are also catching up with the change of international situation and adopting proper approaches to protect their national interests.The paper states that as the stipulator of international standards and the core force promoting accounting internationalization, IASC/IASB adopted different orientations and strategies of interest harmonization before and after its restructure; while its fundamental position is to depend on dominant countries, to improve international standards and to promote the evolution of accounting internationalization.Through analyzing deeply the accounting environment and national interests of China, this paper perceives that the core interests of China in accounting internationalization is to reduce the transaction cost of domestic markets; the important interest is to achieve the standards equivalence with developed countries; and the common interest is to achieve the standards equivalence with developing countries. Judging from the perspective of time schedule, the current interest of China is to achieve the standards equivalence with other countries; the middle-term interest is to establish the standards application environment similar to that of Europe and U.S.; and the long-term interest is to obtain the position equal to that of Europe and U.S. in the international standards constitution.Finally, according to the judgment on Chinese national interests, this paper develops the following specific strategies to maintain national interests: to establish the scientific and rational strategy framework for accounting internationalization, to improve both the internal and external environment, to enhance the accounting strength of China and to strengthen the international cooperation, etc.The main contributions and innovations of this paper are as the following three points : firstly, for the first time it analyzes and studies the national interests of China in accounting internationalization comprehensively, systematically and deeply from the aspect of international political relationship, and puts forward some original academic ideas; secondly, it puts forward some original academic viewpoints on the accounting internationalization in China of the judging and protecting Chinese national interests; thirdly, it analyses rather comprehensively and deeply both the strategies of the main western countries and country union to maintain national interests in accounting internationalization and the IASC/ IASB's position of and measures to harmonize the national interests of different countries historically, which can greatly benefit the researchers for their further study in this field.