merican investors wanting a piece of Chinese firms, whether state-owned oil majors or tech stars, need not stray beyond Wall Street. Over the past two decades some 200 Chinese firms have gone public in America, more than from any other foreign country. (Most have their main listing there; a few have a “secondary” one, with a main listing in China.) These firms’ total market value is more than $1trn. For America’s stock exchanges, that is a great triumph. But trade hawks are starting to describe it as a great liability.
In a letter in April a bipartisan group of politicians led by Marco Rubio, a Republican senator, said American investors faced risks because of exposure to Chinese companies “that pose national-security dangers or are complicit in human-rights abuses”. Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, expanded the focus to all Chinese stocks in America in an interview published on May 22nd in the South China Morning Post. “The next move we make is to cut off all the ipos [initial public offerings], unwind all the pension funds and insurance companies in the us that provide capital to the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.
Source: The Economist