Although contemporary China has developed a distinct economic system, the analytic foundations underpinning China’s state–market relations remain unclear. PERI researcher Isabella Weber and Hao Qi develop in this paper a conceptual framework of what they term China’s state-constituted market economy. They argue that the Chinese state ‘constitutes’ the market economy by creating, participating, and steering markets for essentials in order to stabilize and guide the economy as a whole. Then then draw on China’s statecraft tradition as well as on proposals for financial policy reform in the U.S. to conceptualize the state-market constitution in China.