"All screens are AAA" The credit bond market's hierarchical function urgently needs to be reshaped.

From January to August 2025, the proportion of AAA-rated general corporate bonds in China has reached 85%, far higher than the 40% in 2016. Industry insiders believe that this phenomenon is not due to inflated ratings, but rather a result of factors such as state-owned enterprises becoming the main issuers of bonds and decreasing risk preference on the investment side. However, the excessive concentration of high ratings may weaken the role of credit ratings in risk identification and pricing, leading to a continuous compression of credit spreads and a shift in the credit bond market from "buy and hold" to "short-term trading". Market participants are calling for the acceleration of the development of a highly differentiated rating system, the cultivation of a multi-level investor structure, and the transformation of the rating industry from "expanding scale" to "improving quality" in order to reshape the hierarchical function of the credit bond market.