Shaky China is not a long-term bet for investors

At first glance, this shift seems preferable for China compared with the prior widespread characterisation in 2022-23 that its markets had become "uninvestable." That perception stemmed from poor market performance, disappointing management of debt issues and heavy-handed market interventions by authorities in areas like the technology sector that were sometimes hard to comprehend. Yet, this change in sentiment is too small to help China reduce what has become the clear and present danger of the "middle-income trap". In that outcome, growth momentum dissipates, competitiveness erodes, financial robustness weakens, and long-term foreign investments become even more elusive. Funds mandate an 'ex-China'…