At the height of the 2008 financial crisis, as Wall Street slashed jobs, Beijing took advantage of the disarray to poach top Chinese financial talent from overseas to help reform its stock markets. A former official at the CSRC, one of a group of 20 high-profile returnees, recalled the CSRC’s appeal to make “sacrifices for the motherland”. “We moved our families back to China and gave up high-paying jobs, because we wanted to contribute,” he said.