What Does China’s Stock Market Crash Tell Us?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2015
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
China's economy was up 150% until June. Then it fell by nearly a third. Now it has had the strongest two-day rise since the 2008 global crisis. China’s rollercoaster stock market has provoked panic in recent weeks; panic on the part of small investors, who looked on in horror as previous gains were wiped out, and panic – some would argue – on the part of the Chinese government, which did everything it could to stop the slide. Four expert witnesses analyse what these dramatic events tell us – not about the Chinese stock market, but about China itself.
(Photo: An Investor walks past a stocks and shares board. Credit: Associated Press)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC World Service, this is Michael Blasland with The Inquiry. |
| 0:05.0 | This week, what does China's stock market crash tell us? On the 8th of July in the rural village of Nan Leo in China, villages huddled together. |
| 0:22.1 | According to CNBC news, |
| 0:24.0 | there was nothing traditional about their gathering. |
| 0:27.1 | They were in a mini stock exchange center |
| 0:30.1 | watching the value of their share portfolios. |
| 0:35.0 | For more than a year Chinese share prices had soared. |
| 0:39.0 | People had been tempted to play the market. |
| 0:42.0 | Some even borrowed money to speculate. Now all of a sudden, the Shanghai |
| 0:46.8 | Index, one of the largest stock markets in the world, was in free fall, taking the villagers |
| 0:52.4 | money with it. |
| 0:55.0 | Farmer Lee G. N. Guoah told C and B.C. he had lost confidence in the market. |
| 1:01.0 | The same market newly hailed as a symbol of dynamic Chinese capitalism. |
| 1:07.0 | Chun-Ju Kui, a tailor living in the poor part of Shanghai, told the BBC he had lost 2,000 US dollars. of the |
| 1:15.0 | part of Shanghai, told the BBC he had lost 2,000 US dollars. |
| 1:22.0 | If everyone lost the same as me, it could add up to a big amount. When I chose to buy stocks I didn't think that much. |
| 1:26.0 | Everyone told me they would earn me money. |
| 1:29.2 | Then a few days later it was over. The government intervened heavily and dramatically. It |
| 1:36.0 | suspended or banned whole areas of trading. It bought shares to push up prices and |
| 1:42.0 | it worked. The market bounced back. And what a bounce it was, one of the most rapid stock market gains ever. The panic seemed to pass just like that. |
| 1:55.0 | One view is that this was just a hic-up, much like earlier ups and downs in a market known for its volatility. |
| 2:02.0 | Another view is that this was a hint of a deeper crisis |
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