This might sound like the title of an Alistair Maclean (no relation) thriller, but it was actually a piece of advice given to me many years ago by my then CEO. I asked him about this and he explained that time is the one thing you cannot defeat, it beats us all and removes one day from our life when that day has passed, never to give it back. It was a slightly deep conversation, but I was reminded of it this morning after about a minute of listening to Hayden Briscoe from UBS speak about investing in Asia and in particular China.

China has intrigued me for the past 30 years, almost as long as Hayden has been investing in markets, so this was a talk I wasn’t about to miss. I’m glad I attended it.

Hayden took us through the current state of the market and noted that China was the first market ever to be of its current size and to be so poorly represented in word indices, based on its percentage of GDP. He suggested that this was likely to change in coming years as up to $3tr was invested directly into China fixed income markets. This will push yields down where China currently enjoys returns an order of magnitude over its peers. The door is open to China as an investment and the first investors are already there. They only have 2.6% of the market, which isn’t too surprising given how low China’s weight in the indices is.

This is all likely to change as a new wave of younger investors start to demand higher returns on their portfolios and who see nothing but declining yields in the Western Hemisphere. As global bond market moves become more closely correlated China looks to be maintaining its 0% correlation to Europe, and certainly shows much lower volatility than its peers (2% versus 8-10%). We also looked at how Chinese real yields were close to 3%, a league ahead of its G7 counterparts who are all struggling to beat CPI at present.

It’s also no surprise to note that China offers a better return / volatility ratio than anywhere else, either on a hedged, or unhedged basis and with default rates heading back below 2% for privately owned enterprises (and about 0.2% for State-owned enterprises) in a growing market a compelling investment case was looming large.

We also looked at the rapidly maturing ESG situation in China and how it was a natural home for green investing, given China’s domination in the Solar PV panel and wind turbine business.

We also spent a few moments looking at what is likely to happen in the West – deficit spending, inflation and currency depreciation all loomed large. We rapidly returned to the subject in hand having seen how China is ploughing its own furrow with non-$ denominated commodities exchanges and taking other novel initiatives to cement itself as the reserve currency of the next century.

The premise is simple, this is an opportunity not to be missed, and those who do will probably be on the tail-end of the greatest investment wave in history. Those of you who remember Sir James Goldsmith may recall his epochal statement “by the time you’ve spotted a bandwagon it is already too late”. For me, this morning felt like a private sneak preview of the coach-makers next model.

I could have listened to Hayden all day. His passion for the subject, coupled with a smooth fact-laden delivery made our 90 minutes pass all too quickly. So, whatever else your investment committee looks at in the next quarter, make sure it includes China. Who knows, you might just avoid finding out about how that old enemy called time closes your windows of opportunity.