One of China’s top investors says finance, not AI, is the country’s biggest bottleneck

China’s biggest weakness in its rivalry with the United States isn’t AI, semiconductors or tariffs. It’s finance, according to one of the financiers who helped open China’s markets to Wall Street.

Fred Hu, the former Goldman Sachs executive who helped engineer the firm’s landmark investment in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China before founding Primavera Capital, says Beijing’s financial system has become the country’s “short plank” as Washington and Beijing increasingly sever investment ties. Hu’s private equity firm has backed several of the China’s tech and consumer conglomerates, including Alibaba, ByteDance, Yum China and ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing.

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