Disaster is providing ultimate test

The roller coaster that the Chinese stock market has ridden in the last couple of weeks has been widely reported, including the evaporation of market value equivalent to 10 times the Greek GDP.

Indeed, had it not been for the financial power China has accumulated from more than three decades of reform and opening-up, the second-largest economy would have been in an equal-if not even worse-situation as the southern European country.

The Chinese government has taken a train of contingent moves to put the brakes on what some investors have called a stock market disaster. It should be enough to dissipate a panic that had once loomed large and bring the market to a more stable environment.