(FORTUNE Magazine) – Greenberg, 79, is the chairman and CEO of U.S. insurance giant AIG, which was founded in Shanghai in 1919.

I SERVE on the China Development Bank advisory board [a government-owned commercial lender], and in every meeting there is recognition that they need more of a capital market in China. Rather than having it in Hong Kong or Tokyo or the U.S., it's got to be resident in China. You need to have private-equity funds to help support new industries. You need to have confidence in a debt market, have government bonds. You need accounting protocols and a rating agency that can determine the adequacy of what's being offered as debt or equities. You have to have confidence in the stock exchanges and an equivalent of an SEC. While they do have an embryonic structure like that now, it will be many years before they have all of those things. -- Interview by Abrahm Lustgarten