Did China just open its financial sector to foreign investment?

Historic opening of China’s financial sector?

Shortly after Donald Trump left China, the New York Times says (paywall), “Beijing threw him — and Wall Street — a bone.”

• On November 10, Zhu Guangyao 朱光耀, China’s vice finance minister, said “that his country would start allowing foreign investors to own 51 percent of Chinese securities firms, fund managers and futures companies, and would allow them to own 100 percent three years from now.”
• At present, the limit on foreign ownership is 25 percent for publicly traded securities firms and 49 percent for most other financial businesses.
• Bloomberg called the move a “historic step” and said that “foreign financial firms applauded” it.
• In a separate article, Bloomberg says that this is “just the sort of market-opening move President Donald Trump was seeking on his first trip as president to Beijing,” but that he “didn’t know it was coming,” and “didn’t even ask for it in specific terms on the trip.”
• A cautionary note: Details of the new rules are still to be announced, and in China, the devil and a million demons are always in the details. Hence the question mark in the headline above.

Operation Beijing Butter-Up

The most entertaining take on Trump’s visit to China: Trevor Noah’s on the Daily Show.

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