COLUMN-China's Great Wall of Money? Not the sovereign fund

(Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own)

By Wei Gu

HONG KONG, Dec 5 (Reuters) - China's new sovereign wealth fund has been gripping global markets without spending a single yuan.

Mere rumours that China Investment Corp. (CIC) could enter the bidding for Rio Tinto (RIO.AX: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) (RIO.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) sent the Australian miner's stock higher last week, and talk that it might make investments in Japan boosted the Nikkei index .N225 and caused a bounce in the value of the yen.

That's all a bit overblown. Despite its image as an investment behemoth, the China Investment Corp. appears for now to be just a paper tiger with no way of making big market waves on its own.

Look at the facts.

First, relatively speaking, it's no wall of money. Sure, China Investment Corp. is sitting on $200 billion. But only a third of that, or less than $70 billion, is earmarked for international markets. Some of that will be invested directly, but the majority is likely to be outsourced for other funds.

CIC is dwarfed by U.S. mutual fund giant Fidelity, which manages $1.5 trillion, or the California pension fund Calpers, which has $248 billion in assets.

Of course CIC is not just another mutual fund, and there are people who think that Beijing might use it to make strategic investments motivated by national interest, such as a possible offer for Rio as China gobbles up more global resources from iron ore to crude oil.