My answer on Quora:

At least one way China hopes to address some of the needs of its aging population is by providing households with safe financial assets to invest in. The more options available for households to finance (at least part) of their own retirement, the less pressure on public pensions and the more savings households can invest in the economy.

China has begun transferring state assets to pension funds, but the urgency to further develop its financial system grows even further as the retirement needs of its population grows. Financial market development is at the center of China’s overall economic transition towards a sustainable, consumer-led economy. For more on that, see an older post: Is the Chinese economy sustainable?