This is a contribution to a conference volume for the 2010 National University of Singapore Symposium on ―Law and Development in China - The Legal Dimension of China’s Development Model.‖ The paper aims to shed some light on the way forward for the Chinese securities markets. It examines the desirability of financial markets for broader economic development, and presents the national market system implemented by the US and the norms in the EU’s MiFID that promote competition among and integration of securities markets and alternative trading venues. The paper assesses the current state of the Chinese securities markets, where according to law trading is concentrated on traditional exchanges, against the backdrop of the rapidly evolving (disintegrating) US and EU markets. Clearly, China will be able to learn much from the experiences of the US and EU, but the route that China will take for further evolution of its national market for securities can at this point be neither predicted nor projected.