For lovers of dramatic numbers, China has long been a gift. The flood of cash leaving the country has produced another impressive statistic: We are witnessing the greatest episode of capital flight in history. China’s foreign-exchange reserves fell by $700 billion last year. The flood of cash across its borders is complicating the country’s economic transformation and is raising the risks of problems in other emerging markets, where cash already is flowing outward. “What happened in 2015 coming out of China was unprecedented in magnitude,” said Charles Collyns, chief economist for the Institute of International Finance, a global trade group for the financial industry. The size of China’s $10 trillion economy and its still-huge foreign reserves means the outflow won’t cause an immediate crisis in the country, though there are risks. According to World Bank data, the $700 billion decline in China’s foreign-currency reserves is bigger than the total […]