China’s tech stocks have staged a $700bn rally as the country reopens and a regulatory clampdown on the sector loosens, drawing the attention of international asset managers who fled the market in recent years.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tech index, which is stacked with Chinese companies, has soared almost 60 per cent since its lows last October, with heavyweights such as Tencent and Alibaba gaining $350bn combined in market value, according to Financial Times calculations based on Bloomberg data.
The gains, which picked up late last year when Beijing began lifting its Covid-19 curbs, sharply contrast a painful stretch for Chinese tech shares. Many big-name groups in the sector had their valuations dragged lower since 2021 by punitive measures from Beijing. At the height of the government crackdown, many foreign fund managers debated the extent to which Chinese equities were rendered “uninvestable”.