Among many interesting conversations at last week’s BizNews Investment Conference was one with a China Bull. My BizNews tribesman is not buying the latest warnings, primarily because he has made a fortune through Dawid Krige of Cederberg Capital, who I spent some time with in London three years back. He is also enamoured by Swiss-based contrarian investor Rob Vinall another who apparently regards the latest Chinese shocks as a buying opportunity.
At the risk of getting an eggface by taking on these top performing money managers, it’s also true that to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Krige’s business is 100% focused on investing in Chinese stocks. Vinall’s on buying what everyone else is selling.
For South Africans, the argument is relevant. Because of their heavy portfolio weighting on the JSE, most local money managers have significant slices of their portfolios – mostly deep into double digits – invested in Naspers/Prosus whose share prices are determined by China’s tech champion Tencent.
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Late last week, hedge fund guru turned philanthropist George Soros penned a strong warning in an op-ed for the FT. Soros wrote that those who investors who are believing “reassuring” messages from Beijing are being deceived:  “Xi does not understand how markets operate. Xi regards all Chinese companies as instruments of a one-party state. Investors buying into this rally are facing a rude awakening.”
The excellent analysis republished below, below by FT columnist Merryn Somerset Webb, reaches similar conclusions. For me, her final paragraph brings it all together. Have a read – especially if you’re tempted to dismiss Xi’s “Common Prosperity” pledge as rhetoric rather than an existential threat to Chinese capitalism.
Another global development occupying rational minds is the explosion of “wokeness” and a “cancel culture” spreading from the USA. It is already much in evidence in SA – as Helen Zille explains in her latest book.
Two pieces on the subject worth reading:
*  The Editorial Board of our partners at The Wall Street Journal delivered excellent insights into a significant win for rationality in San Francisco, or “Woke City”. Click here to access.
* That piece focuses on parents forcing of a fresh election by recalling three woke-driven members on the city’s School Board. The Economist refers to this development in its own analysis of wokeism in the latest issue. Well worth using it as one of the free articles the publication allows non-subscribers – click here.
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