Abstract:Risk governance is a common theme in preserving state-owned capital and addressing uncertainty in private enterprises. Using the text information of critical audit matters of private listed companies from 2017 to 2023, this paper empirically studies the risk governance effect of minority state-owned equity and its strategic characteristics. The study finds that minority state-owned equity helps to reduce the risk intensity of the disclosure of critical audit matters of private listed companies, which is mainly driven by the strategic state participation. Further analysis finds that the reduction effect of strategic minority state-owned equity on the risk intensity of critical audit matters of private listed companies mainly takes effect in income category matters and matters with fuzzy attribution, and when private enterprises has good external audit and internal control defects.