Book excerpt: “National finance” is a new concept launched by the author in his book National Finance ─ A Chinese Perspective, a unique monograph that differs from other financial publications dealing with general topics in public finance. The monograph intends to provide a full, well-developed and macro-level exposition of all major aspects of finance from the perspective of the central government, with focus laid on the most essential, immediate and intricate issues in national financial development, which are the "hard nuts" that have to be cracked on both central and regional levels and on the fronts of both offshore and onshore finance. It attempts to cope with a series of formidable challenges that a country, particularly its top government officials, must take in developing finance: how national finance should develop and overtake in the face of rising financial industries, how it should respond to the influx of AI+blockchain technologies, how a country guards against and copes with systematic or regional financial risks with security, fluidity and profitability serving as its cornerstones, how it can build up and promote the new international financial system and governance amid international financial powers around the world, and so on.