China’s stock market regulator vows to ‘capture’ more tycoons
Comments by Liu Shiyu, chairman of watchdog, indicate Beijing’s determination to crack down on market manipulators and control political risks in a sensitive year of power transition
China will capture a group of tycoons – known as the “big crocodiles” of China’s stock market – and bring them back to the mainland to face justice, the head of its stock market watchdog told an annual work meeting on Friday.
The comments by China Securities Regulatory Commission chairman Liu Shiyu, published by mainland media outlet Caixin, mark the clearest sign from Beijing so farthat last month’s disappearance from Hong Kong of billionaire businessman Xiao Jianhua was linked to a mainland crackdown on market manipulators and moves to tighten political control ahead of a sensitive leadership reshuffle this year.
Sources said that Xiao, who left the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong on the eve of Lunar New Year, was assisting investigations related to China’s stock market rout. He has not been charged with any wrongdoing.
China would “devise plans to capture a group of capital market crocodiles and bring them back to the mainland”, Caixin quoted Liu as saying.
The capital market “won’t allow big crocodiles to create winds and rains”, he said, and Beijing would not tolerate them “skinning or sucking the blood of retail investors”. He did not name any “crocodiles”.
