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The FTSE blue chip index has fallen nearly 19% since its peak and while many of the investors are spooked by the economic gloom, Beijing has piled in.
Beijing now owns a stake in at least half of the companies listed in the FTSE 100, the biggest being 1% of BP at GBP 949.4m and 0.5% of HSBC at GBP 508.9m.
Many of the shareholdings are held through nominee accounts in Hong Kong technically held by the State Administration of Foreign Reserves.
What has always surprised me though is the amount of time it took for people in the UK to realize that the Middle Kingdom was wide awake. Even just a couple of years ago (and I suspect later than that) China was just regarded as a source of cheap, mass productive labour with little or no innovation skills, incapable of making quality goods and they made a good takeaway.
I know this, because I always find the best gauge of the public is talking to the locals in the pubs and listening to champagne socialism being babbled at middle class dinner parties ( not that I get invited to many).
About 5 years ago I wanted to learn Mandarin and asked a very senior member of government why it was, that the closest place to learn was in Manchester which was 40 minutes drive away.
I went on to say that the UK was in a prime position (at the time we were, and may still be, behind Germany and France investing in China) and I asked why this was so, given our universities were full of Chinese students and the historical trading links (even forgetting opium for a minute).
I also said they support our football teams, which I think promotes UK Plc as a whole.
The politician (Peter Hain) said it was a good question and did not bother answering it.
I read about 1 year ago that the same man wanted to make Putonghua easily accessible.
If he listened in the first place, the British as a nation may not only have more people speaking Putonghua but also understand Cathay much better.
The lack of mutual understanding acts as a brake to the potentially even bigger economic links between the two and as a result sometimes makes China isolated and plays into the hands of Chinese nationalists.
We all know the human rights and Tibet argument (which the middle class teachers and civil servants spout) versus the economic argument (which sensible people explain), but I believe that in the UK and the west as a whole, we can’t properly comment until we have an understanding of what China was and is. As one Chinese student once eloquently put it:
‘What do you want from us? When we were labeled the sick man of Asia we were called a peril. When we are billed as the next superpower, we’re called the threat’
As yet the West waits to see whether China will be good or bad for the world. But if incorrectly managed, it may cause distrust between Beijing and the west for a generation.
One person who may be thinking it be good is a beleaguered Gordon Brown and thanking them kindly for their investment in his ailing economy.
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