Timeline of China government bond futures

China first experimented with government bond futures as early as 18 years ago. The operation was scrapped just a little more than two years after it’s initial launch due to investor manipulation. In 1992, The Shanghai Stock Exchange issued the country’s first government bond futures, named "327s". These three-year bonds were also China’s first futures. Trading was not available to individual investors until October 1993, when the Shanghai Stock Exchange amended its bond futures contract. Trading volume reached 2.8 trillion yuan by 1994. The industry took a big hit in February of 1995 when WanGuo securities, then China’s largest securities brokerage conducted illegal trading of 327 government bond futures on a massive scale. In the last 8 minutes of trading on February 23rd, WanGuo’s 327 sell orders surpassed 10 million, totalling 210 billion yuan in notional value while outstanding 327s were worth only 24 billion yuan. The company eventually lost 560 billion yuan and declared for bankruptcy.Two months later, the China Securities Regulatory Commission suspended trading in government bond futures.