Wall Street’s finest were on the edge of their seats last December when at least two of China’s most important financiers paid separate visits to New York. Leading US commercial and investment banks were facing huge losses as the year-end approached and were in urgent need of a capital infusion, preferably one that could be announced at the same time as their annual results.

One visitor was Chen Yuan, head of China Development Bank and the son of a Communist revolutionary icon. Mr Chen, a bold and ambitious man, had once been a deputy governor of China’s central bank. Now he presided over an institution that was transforming itself from a lender with a development mandate to a commercial institution with plans to list.