Ray Dalio, the founder of the world’s biggest hedge fund, spends a lot of time contemplating what he deems the China “riddle.”
“How is it that a communist country can be so capitalist that they have the second largest capital market in the world, produce billionaires, and simultaneously be Marxist?” he asks from his Connecticut home, where The Wire reached him by Zoom. “If you don’t know how to answer that riddle, then you must not understand China.”
Dalio, 72, believes he understands China better than most. Since first visiting the country in 1984, on an invitation from China CITIC Bank, he has cultivated a rolodex that extends to the highest echelons of China’s political and corporate classes, giving him insight, he says, into “how China works, who to trust and who not to trust.”
His firm, Bridgewater Associates, has been investing billions from Chinese clients outside of the country for years, but in 2018, it launched its firs
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
The Chinese corporate bond market was designed for lending convenience, not the legal practicality of retrieving money. But with potential defaults by Suning and other reputable companies looming, that system is now being tested.
The pro-democracy activist talks about how the Hong Kong protests changed international sentiment about China and why the right to self-determination still matters.
