One of the most memorable interviews that I conducted in the course of researching for this book took place in a provincial capital along China's prosperous eastern coast. I interviewed the manager of an asset management company (AMC), which was established to recover the myriad nonperforming loans that had accumulated in China's state banks. Throughout the interview, he belabored the importance of central directives on reducing nonperforming loans (NPLs) in the banking sector. After Zhu Rongji, with the full backing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), had imposed a rigid nonperforming loan reduction quota on all Chinese banks, banks were scrambling to remove NPLs from their balance sheets. The manager himself had to meet a cash recovery quota for the NPLs under his charge or face dismissal. He accomplished this by speedily selling the collateral tied to the NPLs to private and foreign investors. When asked about the fate of NPLs not backed by collateral three or four years down the road, his response was simply, “That's for my successor to worry about. I plan to get out after a couple of years with my bonus.” Following the interview, he asked if I was hungry. As it was late in the afternoon and my lunch had been a simple bowl of noodles from a street vendor, I thought I could treat him to dinner and we could continue the conversation.