Despite earning far less than their international counterparts, the men who steer China’s largest state-owned companies welcomed recently announced plans to cut their pay.

“The biggest difference between China and western countries is that we pursue the goal of getting rich together,” Fu Chengyu, head of the country’s largest refiner, said. “If you want to earn big sums, you should not be an SOE executive.”

As Sinopec chairman, Mr Fu earned Rmb863,000 ($141,000) in 2012, a paltry figure compared with the more than $3m earned by Christophe de Margerie at the French oil major Total. The contrast in other sectors is even starker. The president of Bank of China, one of the country’s “big four” lenders, was paid Rmb997,000 ($163,000) last year – or less than 1 per cent of the $20m pocketed by JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon.