The Bank of China went public this week, blogs Jeremy Goldkorn at Danwei, and brought in $9.7 billion with its long-anticipated IPO.

“Despite the fact that everyone knows China's state-owned banks are wobbly and burdened with numerous non-performing loans,” Goldkorn writes, “it seems that investors have confidence in the Bank of China.

“With good reason: the Chinese government would probably give Taiwan away sooner than let the Bank of China collapse. A possibility that seems more remote now that their coffers have swelled by an amount of money greater than the GDP of a small country.”