Part of that is a hedge-fund industry with Chinese characteristics. Regulators forbid the short-selling of individual stocks. But scores of big investment managers have emerged, with portfolios that encompass global and domestic assets as well as private and public markets. Operations at China's hedge funds are increasingly similar to those in global financial centres, says Gokul Laroia of Morgan Stanley, a bank. The biggestis Hillhouse Capital Management, run by Zhang Lei, with about $70bn undermanagement. Some are based offshore with a focus on China like Himalaya Capital, run in Seattle by Li Lu, once seen as a potential successor to Warren Buffett. Investors in China pay close attention to their decisions. When it was revealed last year that Mr Li had upped his stake in Postal Savings Bank of China, scores followed his lead. Shares in the bank, long derided as a stodgy state lender, have doubled in price since October.
具有中国特色的对冲基金行业是其中的一部分。监管机构禁止做空个股。但中国已出现几十家大型投资管理公司，投资组合覆盖全球和国内资产、私人和公开市场。摩根士丹利的高浩澧（Gokul Laroia）表示，中国对冲基金的运作越来越接近于那些在全球金融中心里的基金。其中规模最大的是张磊管理的高瓴资本，所管理资产约为700亿美元。还有一些总部设在海外但专注中国市场，比如由曾被视为巴菲特接班人的李录在西雅图运营的喜马拉雅资本。中国的投资者密切关注他们的投资决策。去年，李录增持中国邮政储蓄银行股份的消息披露后，很多人随之而动。自去年10月以来，这家一直被嘲讽为古板的国有银行的股价已经翻了一番。
Professional fund management is now approaching a tipping point. Retail investors still make up about 80% of average daily trading volume in the stockmarket; in America, even with the much ballyhooed rise in day trading, they account for just about a quarter. Yet institutional investors' holdings as a share of China's market capitalisation have increased from 30% in 2012 to about 50%. At this pace, says an executive at a Chinese asset manager, institutions' share of daily trading volume could hit 50% in the next five years. For foreign firms, the professionalisation of the markets could present an opening. Nothing in China comes easily, though.
专业基金管理就要来到一个转捩点。在中国股市，散户仍占日均交易量的80%左右；在美国，即使出现了被大肆渲染的日内交易增长，散户也只占四分之一左右。但机构投资者的持股占中国股市总市值的比例已经从2012年的30%升至50%左右。一家中国资产管理公司的高管表示，按这个速度，机构在日交易量中的占比可能在未来五年内达到50%。对于外国公司来说，市场的专业化可能会带来机遇。不过，在中国，任何事情都不会那么简单。
For years many officials in China feared that wily Western "wolves" would gobble up the banking market. But Xu Zhong, a senior banking official, observed in 2019 that the problem was in fact the opposite. "We are not open enough," he said. This hindered development; competition was needed to help local firms improve. He added a rhetoricalflourish ofthe kind thatwins debates in Beijing: the lack of opening goes against President Xi Jinping's doctrine that Chinamust be confidentinits system.China, he concluded, should be bolder.
多年来，中国许多官员担心狡黠的西方“狼”会吞噬掉国内的银行业市场。但银行业高级官员徐忠在2019年观察到，问题恰恰相反。“我们还不够开放。”他说。这阻碍了发展，需要引入竞争来推动本土公司升级。他还加上一句在北京无往不利的那种套话：开放不足违背了习近平的理论，即中国必须对自己的制度充满信心。中国应该再大胆一些，他最后总结说。
Mr Xu's line of reasoning has so far prevailed. There are two separate but related openings that are now drawing Chinese and global finance more closely together. The first is the opening of China's capital markets to foreign investors. Funds allocated to China have risen rapidly since 2018. The inclusion of many onshore stocks into global indices, such as msci's flagship emerging-markets index, has led to tens of billions of dollars in passive fund allocation a year. There has also been a rush into the country's sovereign and policy-bank bonds, a tempting alternative to ultra-low-yielding bonds elsewhere.
徐忠的想法到现在仍是主流。目前两个独立而又相关的开放行动使中国金融和全球金融更紧密地联系起来。首先是对外国投资者开放中国的资本市场。自2018年以来，配置到中国的资金快速增加。许多大陆股票被纳入全球指数，如MSCI的旗舰新兴市场指数，每年因此有数百亿美元通过被动基金配置到中国市场。此外，人们也纷纷购入中国的主权债券和政策性银行债券，相比其他地区超低收益的债券，它们是诱人的替代选择。
