For the first time in modern history, Sino-American tensions are spilling in the capital market space, with the final announcement of de-listing of three Chinese telecoms from the New York Stock exchange earlier this month. This delisting, as well as the regulatory measures that underpin it, culminate a long debate on the future of foreign, notably Chinese issuers, on American exchanges. Much is at stake: over 700 Chinese companies are traded on US stock and bond markets, the vast majority in the less regulated over-the-counter market.

Whether Chinese issuers should be listed on American exchanges and how dozens of them were able to do so in direct and American Depository Receipts (ADRs) listings was explored at length in “China Hustle”, a 2017 documentary that highlighted the laissez-faire attitude of successive American administrations and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to Chinese issuers, which it has so far rarely investigated, much less enforced.

In fact, Chinese issuers are not the only ones that have received unwanted interest after they tapped into foreign capital markets where institutional investors deploy billions of dollars of savings. When Saudi Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, contemplated its listing two years ago, a number of institutional investors protested when the London Stock Exchange announced that it would relax its listing standards, to attract the mega IPO.

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