The Chinese stock market disaster is becoming increasingly serious. If the stock market and the housing bubbles burst at the same time, in combination with China’s slowing economy, and if this situation is not handled well, China could face 20 lost years in the same way Japan did following the economic bubble that burst in 1989.
According to a Bloomberg report, the market capitalization value of the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index dropped by US$3.6 trillion between its top notation of 5,178.56 points on June 12 and the close of trading on July 9. This is far more than the French annual GDP, which stands at US$2.81 trillion. Almost 1,500 companies with a market capitalization value of US$2.81 trillion have temporarily suspended trading of their stocks.
During this period, the China Securities Regulatory Commission’s (CSRC) measures were feeble, the Chinese Ministry of Finance was busy handling local debt and the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) and the People’s Bank of China were handling marketization of the interest rate and internationalization of the yuan.
Although interest rates and the reverse repo rate were cut, enough importance was clearly not given to the stock market. Other concerned departments were standing by doing nothing and simply let things take their course.
Between June 12 and July 8, the measures to rescue the market had limited effect: The stock market index dropped rapidly and a systemic financial crisis took shape. The situation is now close to spinning out of control and the problem is quite serious.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) returned from a European visit on July 3, just in time to deal with what stock investors theatrically named “black Friday.” The first thing he did was call a national affairs conference for all concerned ministries and agencies. He took strong action, including traditional financial measures as well as authoritarian administrative control methods, in an attempt to save the market and resolve the crisis.
The CSRC temporarily stopped initial public offerings, while at the same time prohibiting board directors and supervisors holding more than 5 percent of shares in their companies from selling their shares and allowing publicly traded companies to buy back their shares.
Central Huijin Investment Co, a unit of China’s sovereign wealth fund, announced that it would buy shares and invest in exchange-traded funds, and the Chinese government provided unlimited liquidity to China Securities Finance Corp, while at the same time endorsing short-term commercial papers issued by China Securities that are expected to inject 260 billion yuan (US$41.9 billion) through stock purchases by 21 securities firms. The Securities Association of China has said that the goal is to bring the stock index back up to 4,500 points.
Some people have said that providing capital through the central bank to rescue the market in this manner is a Chinese quantitative easing trap. The CBRC is allowing banks to extend expiring marginal loans while at the same time asking them to provide loans to companies buying back shares. The China Insurance Regulatory Commission is asking insurance companies to buy shares, and it is said that they bought shares to a value of 112.1 billion yuan in three days.
Even more crucial, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security has ordered a strict clampdown on short-selling futures contracts. On July 9, these extraordinary measures brought the Shanghai exchange back up by 5.8 percent, which was said to be the biggest gain in six years. Unfortunately, it is still unclear whether these stabilization measures and the suspension of trading by almost half of all Shanghai-listed companies will be sufficient to stabilize the market.
The stock disaster has put the spotlight on shortcomings in China’s financial system and market mechanism, and almost undone Beijing’s efforts to implement financial reform and deregulation in recent years.
The current financial management framework is divided into different industry categories. The bank, securities and insurance regulation authorities and the central bank all work independently of each other as if they had forgotten the cross-industrial integration that has taken place since the 1990s, creating blind spots for traditional management practices. This environment requires a unified financial management framework.
At the same time, the regulatory authorities are maintaining order during the regulation of the financial sector, and they should not intervene directly in day-to-day operations. There is a certain agreement as to which methods can be used and which should be avoided in the handling of a financial crisis. China’s attempts to rescue the market consist of intervention and arbitrary changes to the rules, which only increases the risk and is avoided by international markets. If this approach becomes permanent it will become a major obstacle to financial reform. The question is: How long will the government be able to intervene in the market with such strong measures in an attempt to create a bull market, and can this approach help calm the market? This will be the next problem the authorities will have to address.
The crisis is the biggest challenge that socialism with Chinese characteristics has faced since it began its conversion toward capitalism. The road to reform and deregulation will not be smooth.
Norman Yin is a professor of financial studies at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017