To my knowledge, banks in China do not allow "joint accounts" at all.  Accounts must be in one person's name only.  The other side of the couple can withdraw money if has the ATM card and knows the PIN number.  Oh, also they only issue one ATM card per account, you can not have two.

What I have seen most of the time is that the husband controls the overall account, and the wife does control the household budget account.

I'm not sure about that Happy, I have 4 joint accounts with my wife, two are from Bank of China, 1 from ICBC and 1 from the citic bank that I put my John hancock on beside hers and all of our bank books have both names in them. but we do only get one ATM card except our business account and our credit cards, we have two with our names on it. Maybe if you are not married, that would porbably be the problem. To answer this question I would say my wife controls the money, although I don't particularly like this, she does save a lot and spend little. 6 years of marriage and we have saved over 80% of my pay

Nope. I do, and she insists I do, which is a kind of financial suicide. 

We share the responsibilities. plus she helps me save , which is a big plus. Personally i wish she would manage it more. she would save us a lot more than we are now.

I thought is that it depends solely on the nature of couples and their understanding. Back home, dad and mom managed their own. No joint account. When I was there, I also had to pay based on my earnings so does my sisters. If someone has no job then he/she obliged to do some extra work like growing vegetables in the garden. My uncles and aunts divided the responsibility like one paying for kids school etc and another paying for household stuff. On the other hand, i see some men giving most of the salary to their wives. Some of my friends handover all money to their wives even both do earn. In my past relationship everything was calculated based on our earnings. Now, my fiancee too tells me that I am circulative and so does she. We will have separate accounts. We will share responsibilities but we don't make joint accounts and I am not going to handover my money. She already said she doesn't want it and she is a capable woman so she is ready to compete with me in equal and healthy terms. I love that.

i manage most of the money because she would use too much for shopping

but we are both the saving kind so there is not much to manage, all bills are paid by company and so i have my net salary for living and saving so

I have complete control over money. I make it all, so im not handing it over. Too be honest, i wish she would take a more pro-active role. But on the other hand i like that she isnt an entitled brat. She works out how much is needed for bills every month then i pay it. I make sure she always has more than enough cash, and she still feels uncomfortable spending it. If she needs or wants to go shopping, she will ask for a limit, then always hacks a few hundred off of it so she comes home with money.

Maybe because she and her family has always had money, it really isnt important to her.  It almost seems she doesnt truly understand the value of it, so she really doesnt want or need to responsibility of handling it.  Overall, compared to other women i have encountered in China, I respect her alot for it.