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Crime in China
ChinaPolitics

Chinese police arrest man for spreading stock market rumours amid prolonged equities slump

  • Sichuan man ‘seriously misled investors’ by falsifying information about China’s securities financing policy, authorities say
  • China is seeking to revive retail and investor confidence amid slumping stock market, struggling economy

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China is seeing a growing number of cases in which law enforcement targets people deemed to have undermined the economy with “rumours”. Photo: Shutterstock Images
Yuanyue Dangin Beijing
A man in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan has been arrested for spreading rumours about the stock market amid a crackdown by law enforcement on acts that undermine the country’s fragile economic recovery.
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A 30-year-old man in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan and a commercial hub, was detained over suspicions he used news about China’s stock market from foreign media to fabricate stories, China’s top police agency, the Ministry of Public Security, said on Wednesday morning.

The ministry’s Bureau of Network Security Protection said in a briefing posted on its public WeChat account that the man, surnamed Wang, had been arrested by Chengdu police.

According to the briefing, Wang tampered with part of a page published by a foreign news media organisation to fabricate false information about China’s securities financing policy “based on subjective assumptions and the pursuit of mental stimulation”.

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The statement said that the fake news was spread on websites and social media, which “seriously disrupted the stable operation of the securities market, seriously misled investors and the public, and seriously damaged the online public opinion environment”.

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Police in Sichuan said the local securities regulators cooperated in the investigation.

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