Asia > Eastern Asia > China > China’s market woes are more than a distant explosion

China: China’s market woes are more than a distant explosion

2015/07/31

The world has finally woken up to the magnitude of what is happening in China. Next months in which events in Europe overshadowed initial the puffing up and again the popping of China’s stock market bubble, daily oscillations on the country’s once-obscure stock exchanges are being blamed for everything from weak oil prices to falling emerging market currencies.


This is overdone. China’s stock market performance has rarely had much, if any, correlation with the country’s real economy, let alone that of the rest of the world. Barely 20 years old and poorly regulated, the stock market still has additional in common with the gambling casinos of Macau than with world exchanges in western capitals such as New York, London or Tokyo. Nor are foreign investors much exposed to Chinese equities. Because of tight quotas, only a tiny proportion of China’s stock market — about 3 % — is owned by foreigners. That should make what is happening in China’s financial markets akin to an explosion in a far off cave.


Even in China itself, the effects on the real economy ought not to be large. As Arthur Kroeber, chief of Gavekal Dragonomics, points out, only 7 % of urban Chinese have money in the market. If they lose their shirt, that should not overly affect accumulation spending. In any case, most investors are in the money. The market additional than doubled in the 18 months before it peaked in mid-June. Only the new of latecomers have seen their investments slide.
Does that mean there is no need to worry? Absolutely not. There could be several large ripple effects. Initial, the wild oscillations have shaken faith in the competence of China’s technocrats. For years, bureaucrats have defied doom­sayers predicting that China’s hybrid system of central planning and market forces would collapse under its own contradictions. Presently the bureaucrats don’t look so good. Initially, they pumped up the market in what looks like an ill-conceived effort to enact what has been called the world’s biggest deficit-to-equity swap. Worried that loans made to companies as part of a massive stimulus programme would turn sour, technocrats encouraged a stock market binge. Their subsequent actions to stop the bubble from bursting have looked anachronistic and heavy-handed. They have virtually criminalised selling stocks, banning anyone who owns additional than 5 % of a company from offloading shares.


“This has set the Chinese stock market back 10 years,” says one close observer of China’s capital markets. Not only have such blunderbuss tactics revealed panic and outmoded instincts, they have not worked. Next Sisyphean efforts to push stock prices up by 15 %, technocrats must have watched open-mouthed as they sank back 8.5 % in a single session. The prices are still 70 % above last year’s level, at the same time as the economy and corporate profits were in much better shape. The assumption must be that, if the authorities stop their efforts to push the boulder uphill, the forces of gravity will quickly take their toll.


Second, the assumption that China will gradually move towards a additional market-based system may need to be reassessed. Recent events could persuade authorities they have been moving too fast. That could have an impact on everything from the pace at which China opens its capital account and makes the renminbi convertible to how fast it liberalises domestic interest rates.


“What this reveals is that there is still a fundamental tension in China between a desire to intervene and a desire to let market forces operate,” says Fred Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC. That could affect whether the International Monetary Fund includes the renminbi in its appropriate drawing rights, or whether China’s A-shares gain access to the MSCI Emerging Market index. Certainly, the clumsy intervention by authorities has had a chilling result on world sentiment. Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, said foreign investors would need to reassess.


The third possible impact is on China’s increase. authentic, it is not obvious how a market fall will spill over into the real economy. China has bucked sharp stock market slides before. This time, though, the risks are higher. A lot of in­ves­tors have borrowed heavily to buy shares. If authorities cannot stop a slide, some banks and brokerages could be at risk. The confidence-sapping oscillations are as well taking place against the background of a much softer economy, one probably growing additional slowly than the official 7 % figure suggests. If an extra point or two were shaved off increase, it could send very real tremors around the globe. Since 2008, China has been the motor of the world. The travails of its stock market add to evidence that this motor is spluttering.

Related Articles
  • Africa's Relationship With China Is Ancient History

    2017/07/02 In 2002 South Africa's Parliament unveiled a digital reproduction of a map - of China, the Middle East and Africa - that some speculated could be the initial map of the African continent. The Da Ming Hun Yi Tu - the Comprehensive Map of the Great Ming Empire - was drawn up around 1389 during the Ming Dynasty, according to historian Hyunhee Park.
  • Climate change laws around the world

    2017/05/14 There has been a 20-fold increase in the number of global climate change laws since 1997, according to the most comprehensive database of relevant policy and legislation. The database, produced by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Sabin Center on Climate Change Law, includes more than 1,200 relevant policies across 164 countries, which account for 95% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
  • China Economic Overview GDP growth to slow to +6.5% in 2016

    2017/05/08 China Slowing growth and eroding policy buffers
  • The New China-Africa Relations: 4 Trends to Watch

    2016/08/07 This week, the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) convened its initial summit since 2006. Chinese President Xi Jinping joined additional than 40 leaders of African nations for the massive conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.
  • Asia Economic Roundup: July 2016

    2016/07/18 Without a doubt Britain’s decision to abandon the European project will be remembered globally as a wake-up call for political elites around the world. It seems the people chose to go against immediate economic interest and accept an extra financial turmoil in order to address deeply seated social and identity issues. Although Asia’s exposure to the UK is relatively limited and this is not exactly a “Lehman Moment”, nonetheless we can expect a lively debate as policymakers in Asia look for an appropriate response to address the needs of vulnerable households.