George Soros is creating an emperor’s-new-clothes moment for Wall Street by raising some provocative questions about why foreign finance companies would trip over themselves to rush into China. As BlackRock launches a $1 billion mutual fund aimed at Chinese savers, a separate question arises: What’s in it for Beijing?
The domestic financial market is just about the only thing the Communist Party is opening up even partially at the moment. President Xi Jinping’s near-decade in power has been marked by an accelerating consolidation of political authority coupled with an expanding crackdown on private enterprise. Yet while Beijing builds concentration camps for Uyghurs in Xinjiang, eviscerates Hong Kong’s freedoms, broadens the reach of state-owned enterprises and tanks overseas stock listings of tech companies, Mr. Xi is opening the Chinese market for . . . mutual funds?
