China’s ownership rules are notoriously murky. As you report, eager foreign investors and canny locals are forever in search of ways around them (”Who Owns What?” July 9, 2011). The most popular among these is something known as a “variable interest entity” (VIE). As you explain, Chinese assets are placed in a Chinese company that must be run by a Chinese citizen, whereupon the returns are shifted first to a foreign company registered in China, and then to an offshore company. This is known as the “Sina” model after the first Chinese Internet company to be listed overseas. As you report, there are signs that the Chinese government is getting uneasy about VIEs, though. Thus, there is a growing risk that foreign companies will suddenly find their investments in China as either illegal or worthless. A warning to remember, indeed. But you eschew the converse of the thorny problem facing the Chinese government: privatization of public assets by canny locals. Just like political unrest, this is something that cannot be left to chance. Forever in search of “legal” ways to privatize public assets, top party officials and their plump families will not allow helter-skelter pilfering of their own stakes in Chinese assets. Put differently, chances are that foreign companies by themselves are of secondary interest to the Chinese government.