Viewpoint: Beijing is right to restrict insurers’ investments

Last July, a little-known Chinese insurance company started buying up shares in China Vanke, one of the country’s largest property developers. Qianhai Life Insurance, a subsidiary of conglomerate Baoneng, was founded just four years ago – it has not taken the company long to cause a stir. Qianhai’s hostile bid for Vanke ultimately failed, but it generated a great deal of publicity in the process. Vanke’s chairman Wang Shi, apparently exasperated by the sheer audacity of a hostile …