The unbearable turbulence of Chinese shares

Have all the efforts Chinese policymakers made to save the once-10-trillion-dollar domestic stock market from falling over the cliff since early July come to nothing with the country's benchmark Shanghai Composite index ending with the sharpest fall since early 2007 on Monday?

That is a mind-bending question for not only tens of millions of individual stock investors in this country, but also Chinese officials who are desperate to steer the world's second-largest economy through a year of increasing uncertainties.

Following a poor week that saw an 11-percent drop in its market value, Chinese stocks nosedived again on Monday with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index plummeting 8.49 percent to close at 3,209.91 points, the sharpest decline in more than eight years.