Convergence of fears

The steep two-day plunge in Chinese stocks ostensibly dealt a heavy blow to cheerleaders of the "decoupling" theory.

Optimists once believed that the Chinese economy had grown resilient enough to shrug off a US recession. But the performance of the stock market appears to indicate otherwise.

After diving by more than 5 percent on Monday, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index tumbled another 7.22 percent to 4,559 yesterday.