From Asia Times Online:
Mass movements are part of Chinese tradition. Chinese people tend to act as a group and, whenever conditions are ripe, they rush to join with someone or some group taking the lead. Hence a “mass movement” can be easily formed. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were the “all people becoming citizen-soldiers” movement and the Cultural Revolution launched by Mao Zedong.
In the era of economic reform and opening up, “mass movements” appear to have become more spontaneous. In the 1980s, there was a time when “all people rushed to do commercial businesses”. And now we are witnessing another mass movement: “all people speculating in stocks”.
Indeed, as the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets keep rising, more and more Chinese citizens join the army of speculators. On April 26, some 325,000 new investor accounts were opened on the single day, pushing the total number to 92.5 million. This means one out of every 14 mainland Chinese (including children and the aged) is now a player. This does not even include those who trade in shares through investment funds.
Considering that 80% of the 1.3 billion Chinese are farmers, it may be safe to say that almost all urban adults are stock investors or speculators. [Full Text]
Read also Tim Johnson’s blog post: Stocks keep people glued home.
