THE TIMING OF THE AUTHORITIES' LATEST promise on financial reforms might have made it look like a stopgap effort to boost the country's sagging stock market.

But such a blueprint for capital-market overhaul is not, and should never be, about the short-term performance of Chinese shares.

Instead, by boosting regulatory transparency and widening market access, the significance of the new reform guidelines should be evaluated by their long-term role in rendering the dysfunctional domestic stock market a really working one.