Li Yifei, head of Man Group in China, is said to have gone on holiday after being summoned by officials investigating the plunge in the stock market. As regulators, executives and journalists face allegations of manipulation and “rumour-mongering”, China wants others to take a break too.

The hedge fund executive’s experience is part of China’s awkward efforts to block the selling of shares and censor information. Four executives at the investment bank Citic Securities are reported to have confessed to insider trading, and Wang Xiaolu, a reporter for the business magazine Caijing, has been paraded on television to apologise for an unwelcome story that he wrote in July.

China is not the only country to experience a loss of faith in free-market principles when stock markets fall. Many others, including the UK and US, banned short selling of shares in banks and brokers in 2008. In principle, they supported open, liquid securities markets in which buyers and sellers interact freely; in practice, they panicked.