Overall, the unfolding drama of China – as viewed on this side of the Pacific, in sunny Los Angeles – has, in the past week or so, seen the vigour of its vim dimmed somewhat.

My worry is not so much the mayhem of the markets and the attendant gangling neuroticism of the gigantic mainland economy. While reports in the world media have been fulsome with negative detail, the fact is that an expanding, multifaceted economy such as China’s was never going to unfold as daintily as a blooming rose or as harmoniously as a Mozart symphony. It was always going to jerk this way and that – imagine an especially neurotic octopus suddenly with even with more legs than normal and a central brain system constantly struggling just to keep count of them all.

Worry not excessively. China now fields smarty-pants economists as cunning and well schooled as any, anywhere. They will figure a way out, over time, especially if their political masters permit them enough time to do so and display the political guts to back them up. At the end of the day, politics does tend to trump the economists. Consider the highly political – and bizarre – story of the Causeway Bay bookstore and its missing team, including the owner. This macabre mystery rattles many nerves even more than the roiling markets.

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Balance and perspective must be maintained until enough verifiable facts are out, and right now there are not many. Over the weekend one of the five, in Thailand, outed himself as a fugitive from mainland criminal justice and turned himself in. But what about the other four in the bookstore gang of five? That’s the Hong Kong worry.

From China’s hypersensitive viewpoint, “one country, two systems” goes out the window if and when Hong Kong morphs into a base of subversion on its southern flank. If President Xi Jinping ’s (習近平) internal enemies (presumably growing in number and intensity with every new corruption crackdown) are using Hong Kong to spread tawdry and demeaning rumours in order to lower the angelic glow around the boss, mainland security people will want to know every who and all the how. Until his rocked economy regains its footing, Xi might want to dial down the intensity of the ethical evangelicalism. It is not for show that Xi travels with a noticeably large security detail wherever he goes.

Beijing does not wholly trust Hong Kong. Note that Article 23 of the mutually agreed Basic Law says: “The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organisations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organisations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organisations or bodies.” Beijing, for its part, takes notice of the fact that, almost two decades after the historic handover, Hong Kong has not done this.