China's president Xi Jinping was set to hold talks with his nation's securities on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg, a signal of government intervention believed to have given a short-term boost to the country's ailing equities market.
Chinese leadership is going on the offensive to address the country's hemorrhaging stock market, which has lost over $6.3 trillion in three years.
It is one of a number of issues plaguing the nation's slowing economy, along with an ongoing property market crisis, lackluster consumer demand, and a stagnant manufacturing sector.
But Chinese stocks soared upward on Tuesday to register their largest gains in 14 months. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 3.23 percent to close at 2789.49 points, and the Shenzhen Component Index rose to over 6 percent.
Also on Tuesday, government-owned sovereign fund Central Huijin Investment said it was boosting investment in China's A-shares—or the stock of the mainland China's incorporated companies listed on either the Shenzhen or Shanghai stock exchanges.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission has made a number of statements over the past few days believed to be aimed at shoring up investors' confidence. Among these was the announcement it was placing more limits on short selling to stop speculators from driving share prices even lower.
Meanwhile the Chinese Communist Party leadership has replaced the head of the country's securities regulator, Yi Huiman, with Wu Qing, state media outlet Xinhua reported Wednesday. Wu's no-nonsense approach toward traders in the mid-2000s earned him the moniker "Butcher of Brokers."
Shareholders have been restless on China's social media over the past few days.
On February 2, disgruntled shareholders began flocking to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing's account on Weibo—China's microblogging platform similar to X, formerly Twitter—and used the diplomatic mission's post concerning giraffe conservation to air grievances over their country's economic woe's.
By Wednesday afternoon, the post had amassed nearly 1 million likes, 181,000 comments, and 20,000 shares.
Some observers said the episode was a result of the Chinese securities regulator disabling comments on its own Weibo page, a common tactic used by state authorities to regulate discourse on the country's tightly controlled social media platforms.
On Monday, Xinhua took down a seemingly innocuous "good morning, China" social media post featuring a pair of high divers.
A screenshot taken before the deletion was shared to X by a China watcher who speculated the image had touched a nerve with the authorities as an accidental metaphor for the nation's stock market rout.
Newsweek reached out to the China Securities Regulatory Commission with a written request for comment.
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Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
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