How Shanghai’s ambition to be the ‘future of finance’ fell apart

The port city was meant to be China’s answer to New York, but trade tensions and changing domestic priorities have taken a toll.

Animal spirits tamed: statues of bulls in Pudong’s Lujiazui Financial District in Shanghai, China, in October Bloomberg

Thomas Hale and Cheng Leng

Dec 11, 2024 – 5.00am

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On a blustery October day, the remaining fragments of what was once Shanghai’s hottest bar and restaurant are being liquidated. Champagne glasses cost 28 yuan ($6), waistcoats hang from a 1500 yuan lime-green screen, and a framed poster from the 1930s leans against the wall.

M on the Bund closed its doors for the last time in February 2022, in the midst of China’s zero-COVID policy. By the time its contents were finally sold off six weeks ago, they had already become relics of another era.

Financial Times