I recite this story not just because in this week of mourning it makes an instructive anecdote about South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy, but as a reminder that more than 20 years later, China has still got a long way to go in adopting the capitalist economics it once urged on Mandela. True enough, it has embraced many of the tenets of free enterprise, enabling an unparalleled period of growth. But it remains substantially a command economy, and in one crucial respect – free movement of capital – it is still stuck in the dark ages.