China’s government-backed investment funds may be history’s greatest experiment in using state capital to reshape a nation’s economy. More than 1,000 such government budget-seeded vehicles now seek to leverage up to RMB5.3 trillion (US$798 billion) in capital, a figure equal to 32% of all assets managed by the global private equity and venture capital industry, 7.1% of China’s gross domestic product, or slightly more than the GDP of the Netherlands, the world’s 18th largest economy.
