Wu Qing, the new head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, had been in the job for less than a month when he took to the stage for a high-profile press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.By the end of his first answer, the “broker butcher” — as he came to be known during a stint with the commission’s risk control unit — had left little doubt among listeners as to whether that nickname was still appropriate. “When it comes to market regulation, the key Chinese characters are ‘strong’ and ‘severe’,” he said, in response to a question from state media.
With his predecessor Yi Huiman having been recently dismissed after failing to halt a long-running and embarrassing stock rout, Wu’s more forceful approach — including a crackdown on quant funds whose “abnormal” trading had allegedly dragged down valuations — appears to have produced visible results.
Since touching a five-year low in February, China’s benchmark CSI 300 index has climbed 14 per cent.