This study is a historical examination of the emergence, fragmentation, and development process of joint-stock corporations in China. After the emergence of China's first joint-stock corporation, the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, in 1873, joint-stock corporations experienced tortuous changes and development depending on the historical environment. Despite various legalization efforts by the Qing feudal dynasty, the attempt at industrial capitalization failed, resulting in the emergence of state-owned enterprises, which combined with the family rule of the Kuomintang government and transformed into enterprises characterized by family bureaucratism. After the establishment of the Chinese Communist government in 1949, most joint-stock corporations were absorbed into state-owned enterprises, while some escaped to Taiwan and Hong Kong, becoming important components of overseas Chinese enterprises. Taiwanese and Hong Kong enterprises maintained the lineage of Chinese joint-stock corporations, but the joint-stock corporations absorbed into state-owned enterprises gradually disappeared, vanishing from Chinese society through socialist transformation, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. After 1992, with the full-scale opening of the Chinese market and the active investment in mainland China by Taiwanese and Hong Kong enterprises, joint-stock corporations re-emerged on the Chinese mainland. As a result, changes in the ownership structure of state-owned enterprises have been accelerated in China, and a new managerial revolution has begun with the emergence of a managerial class.