The global market research and index company MSCI Friday added about 230 China-listed shares to its emerging market benchmark in the first step of a two-stage process. One of the big questions is what sort of time frame are foreign investors looking at.

The inclusion will mean that A-shares make up 40 basis points of the MSCI Emerging Market Index. While on paper the weighting might seem low, the ramifications for China's markets and foreign investors could be huge in the longer term.

"I think there's a general theme there about China wanting to open up capital markets. That's the general theme, and they do that one, to try and change behavior onshore, in terms of investing from a risk perspective, and two to go and encourage foreign inflows into China," said Rakesh Patel, global head of Equity Advisory for HSBC.

While investors might have reason to be jittery, for most this is a move defined by opportunity. Analysts estimate about 20 billion US dollars will initially flow into Chinese stocks through this initial weighting. That could rise to 300 billion US dollars if there is full inclusion.

KraneShares and Bosera – two fund companies launched an ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) tracking the progressive partial inclusion of A-shares into the MSCI – said that inclusion lies in the growth of passive investment. 

"Those investors need to mechanically adhere to the index methodologies and I think that's demonstrated by MSCI's up to 14 trillion US dollars benchmarked to their indices. That's a big number. 17 percent of MSCI Emerging Markets? Potentially very strong inflows from passive, as well as active investors," said Brenda Ahern, CIO for KraneShares.

Foreign investors already have access to Chinese shares through Hong Kong's landmark Stock Connect programs with Shanghai and Shenzhen. Ahead of the MSCI inclusion, these have been quadrupled in size to provide both liquidity for passive investing, and because active investment is expected to grow as well.

The timing is far from perfect. Markets are still nervous about ongoing trade frictions between Washington and Beijing. There are also ongoing worries about credit risks in the broader Chinese market. But as far as foreign investors are concerned, the biggest fear of all could be of missing out on this opportunity.

"In general we're still underweight. The risk is actually if you don't get fully weighted in China versus your trackers, you'll have a tracking risk, so that's one risk if you like. But form an active fund manager perspective, when you're picking stocks in China you obviously have to go and tread a bit carefully. It's a new market for most global investors, so if you're sitting in Boston, or New York or San Francisco, China's a long way," Patel told CGTN.