I think the war in Ukraine shows well why you shouldn’t buy and hold Chinese Stocks (at a large extent)


I just want to share my personal opinion.

We all know the common arguments against owning Chinese stocks, which are questionable VIA structure, questionable accounting, questionable auditing and also being dependent on policies of the CCP like the recent interventions against the education sector and gaming sector. That doesn't stop many from investing in Chinese stocks, saying it will be all right and that some of their stocks appear to be very undervalued (to which I agree).

However another risk which becomes obvious now is Chinas aggression against it's neighbors, in particular Taiwan. China isn't making a secret out of it, that they plan to invade Taiwan at some point in the future and they do not accept Taiwan as an independent nation as it currently is.

We can only hope that it never happens, but if it happens (And at least for me I think it's somewhat likely in the long-term), you can be sure that China will receive the same sanctions as Russia right now and China will also fight back with similar methods. In such a case the Chinese stock market and the yuan will be likely crashing like in Russia right now. But even more importantly, you can be almost sure, that you will not be able to sell your BABA ADRs no matter how good the fundamentals are. It appears to be likely that China would ban foreign access to Chinese capital markets and the VIA structures would suddenly become illegal. Chinese stocks will have for any non Chinese citizen a value of $0.

Considering such a situation, it appears to be not smart to own large amounts of Chinese stocks. And anyone who still decides to own them should take the risk of such a scenario into account.


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