CHINA

China’s Communist leaders cautiously approved the Shenzhen stock exchange last week, allowing the official beginning of an ambitious financial experiment. “ . . . The road to stock reform is bright,” said Zhu Senlin, acting governor of Guangdong province. Wednesday’s official exchange opening marked the end of more than three years of gray-market trading in the south China zone, where nascent capitalists have repeatedly butted heads with the hard-line leadership in Beijing. China is pushing ahead with stock markets because of simple economics. While the state has no more money to support enterprises, there is a huge amount of untapped funds--more than $130 billion--sitting in people’s bank accounts and hidden under their mattresses.