I don't disagree with any of that. Most of the other developed countries though have some kind of government or corporate (in the case of Japan) safety net that

I don't disagree with any of that. Most of the other developed countries though have some kind of government or corporate (in the case of Japan) safety net that China lacks. The only example that I'm aware of that lacks either is South Korea, which has extremely high elder poverty rates compared to OECD peers. I guess the word I was looking for to describe the Chinese financial system is 'immature.' It is unfortunately not uncommon for some Chinese firm to get delisted for accounting fraud or some other type of impropriety, so investing in the indexes is a worse idea than it is in many other countries. And then there's all the marketing of dubious financial products that people inevitably lose their savings on and protest; before people swarming the Evergrande HQ demanding their money it was P2P lending and many other scams.