As Chinese stocks plummeted on “Black Monday”, triggering waves of panicked selling around the globe, China’s leaders seemed strangely unperturbed.
Premier Li Keqiang was quoted in state media calling for development of China’s 3D printing industry. President Xi Jinping attended a Communist party meeting, where he vowed to crush followers of the Dalai Lama and urged Tibetans to absorb “Marxist values”.
In the days that followed, under strict orders from the Communist party’s propaganda department, the country’s heavily censored media was no longer dwelling on the global sell-off or China’s role in it. In the rare reports on the worst multi-day Chinese equity rout since 1996, they admonished “global financial markets [that] have overreacted like a burnt child fearing fire”.