Descent on the stock markets
Chinese small investors dump their frustration on the US embassy
February 4, 2024, 6:10 p.m
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It’s just a harmless giraffe post that the US Embassy in Beijing publishes on Weibo. But frustrated Chinese people use the post to express their dissatisfaction with the stock market problems in their country. One user even asks about American missiles.
In view of the decline in China’s stock markets, citizens of the People’s Republic are venting their frustration on social media and are also using the US embassy account as a suggestion box. On Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of
Many of the reactions had nothing to do with the topic. So does this repost: “Can’t you spare some rockets to bomb the Shanghai stock exchange?” wrote one user sarcastically. The US Embassy’s Weibo account in China “has become a wailing wall for Chinese retail investors,” said another user. No comment has yet been received from the US Embassy, which posted its post on Friday.
While Weibo users can publish individual posts about the market and the economy, the Chinese authorities regularly block what they see as negative online comments if they reach wider circles. Although the Chinese economy has recovered after the end of the Corona crisis, the simmering real estate crisis is still weighing on it. Furthermore, prices in the country have been falling for months and consumption is not coming out of the slump.
This is also reflected on the stock markets: the CSI300 stock index fell by 6.3 percent in January. A series of government support measures have failed to boost confidence, which has been hit by the economic situation. In late January, state media reported that China would take “more forceful” measures to boost market confidence after a Cabinet meeting chaired by Premier Li Qiang.
Since then, Chinese authorities have stepped up their efforts to reassure investors, sending positive messages that sometimes have the opposite effect. Recently, the official mouthpiece “People’s Daily” published an article with the headline: “The whole country is full of optimism.” The headline soon received ridicule on social media. One Weibo user wrote in a post about the US Embassy’s giraffe conservation article: “The entire giraffe community is full of optimism.”