If China Sees Capital Outflows Now, What Happens in Crisis?

Here’s another Chinese puzzle. Economic growth, while slowing, is still 7 percent and the stock market is on a tear. Yet money is leaving the country.

That’s a turnaround for an economy that’s been a magnet for foreign capital during the boom years of the past decade. Why the outflow? A property bust, squeezed corporate profits and the end of a multi-year currency upswing are giving investors fewer reasons to pile in. At the same time, President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on corruption gives more reasons for the nation’s rich to squirrel some of their wealth abroad.