IPO arrow on regulator's bowstring

Reforms herald breakthroughs like domestic floats of tech unicorns and overseas-listed Chinese companies

When the Shenzhen Stock Exchange launched the ChiNext board in 2009, Beijing had hoped it would someday grow up into China's Nasdaq and be home to stocks of the country's most valuable innovative startups and a cradle of future Chinese tech equivalents of Apple and Microsoft.

Nine years on, the board seems to have fallen short of such expectations.