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Quick Take | Sovereign wealth funds: just a way for China and Russia to flex muscles?

‘Money and politics make a combustible mix: If you don’t get the formula right, it can blow up in your face’

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President Xi Jinping and Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh in Beijing in November. Photo: Reuters

When the Gulf emirate of Dubai acquired the storied British shipping and logistics firm Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company for US$6.85 billion, it sparked fears that governments could employ cash-rich sovereign wealth funds and state-run companies as political muscle.

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Twelve years later, with wars raging across the Middle East and external powers jockeying for influence amid Western allegations that China and Russia are manipulating public opinion and buying influence, those fears have proven justified.

Dubai bought P&O through state-owned DP World, one of the world’s largest port management and terminal operators, although concern in a post-September 11 world that an Arab state would gain control of some of the busiest terminals in US ports forced the company to exclude P&O’s American assets from the deal.

Managing Director of China Merchants Port Holdings Bai Jingtao signs a deal with the Sri Lankan government. Photo: AFP
Managing Director of China Merchants Port Holdings Bai Jingtao signs a deal with the Sri Lankan government. Photo: AFP
Those worries also prompted the creation of an international working group – chaired by a senior financial official from the UAE, of which the ruler of Dubai is vice-president, alongside an International Monetary Fund executive – that adopted the Santiago Principles in 2008. The principles were designed to ensure that a sovereign wealth fund “undertakes investments without any intention or obligation to fulfil, directly or indirectly, any geopolitical agenda of the government”.

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Thirty-one funds, including the China Investment Corporation, the Russia Direct Investment Fund, and funds of the oil- and gas-rich Gulf countries – representing 80 per cent of assets managed by sovereign funds globally or US$5.5 trillion – have signed on to the principles.

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