China has developed innovative and unique types of of sovereign wealth funds — and the West risks ignoring them at its own peril.
Illustration by Pete Ryan
The cover of the January 19, 2008, edition of The Economist showed three large tandem-rotor military helicopters, each hauling a pallet full of gold bars and emblazoned with the flags of China, Singapore and Kuwait.
Credit: The Economist
Above the fleet of helicopters, the headline announced the impending “invasion of the sovereign wealth funds.” This hyperbolic declaration was a reference to several sovereign wealth funds
(SWFs) from Asia and the oil-rich Arabian Gulf that ha
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