Mr. Shangkong | Were foreign puppet-masters really behind the tanking Chinese stock market?

As China’s stock markets sank into bear territory again this week, after panicking investors offloaded their holdings, debate raged as to what exactly had prompted the market to fall with all the speed and ferocity of a sharpened guillotine.

Many pointed the finger at “foreign interference,” and not for the first time. The Chinese media, and foreign ministry in Beijing, love to bandy this term around and blame it for a range of problems. At times, it feels like the go-to scapegoat for any social unrest, or economic or political instability in China.

During “Occupy Central” late last year, the almost three-month pro-democracy movement that caused waves in Hong Kong and beyond, this old chestnut was again called into play by the powers-that-be in the Chinese capital.

“Foreign interference” was deemed to be behind the massive public protests in the city – at least, this was held up as one of several leading causes. 

Some pro-Beijing newspapers went as far as accusing America’s Central Intelligence Agency of fomenting the unrest, as Beijing faced its worst political crisis pertaining to the Hong Kong government since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Now that the nation’s stock market is taking a beating after a year of enviable success, it seems like those interfering foreign agents are set to be paraded out again.