It is a sign of the severity of China’s stock market correction that the authorities in Beijing no longer seek either to thwart or deny the carnage. There is simply too much red on stock brokers’ screens for them to wish away.

The latest slide — an 8.5 per cent drop officially dubbed “Black Monday” — takes to almost a fifth the decline in shares since the renminbi devaluation on August 11. Worryingly for a country that has been encouraging the public to buy stocks that were until recently rising rapidly, the market now stands below its level on January 1.

Gone too are the days when the developed world could look on with unconcern at turmoil on China’s exchanges. Their fall is ricocheting around the globe, hitting shares and already-peppered commodity prices. London’s FTSE 100 index shed 4.4 per cent of its value, and many European bourses fell similar amounts. The Dow Jones index slid sharply at the opening, before rallying later.