When Lou Jiwei, the head of the China Investment Corporation, appears on a panel at Davos next week, he will attract a flurry of interest from financiers. CIC is less than a year old, but the actions of this vast investment fund - and numerous others in China - are already attracting attention in global financial markets.

As the debt crisis deepens, entities such as CIC are emerging as the first choice of capital for the rest of the world, especially embattled Western banks. Morgan Stanley was the first to secure rescue finance from the Chinese, but there have been numerous other supplicants, including the unsuccessful Citigroup.