Think Greece’s economy is the one in trouble? It’s CHINA that’s facing financial meltdown and the biggest stock market crash since the Great Depression Nearly $3trillion wiped off Chinese stock markets in just the last few weeks Government and investors launched campaign to prop up tumbling shares Booming stock markets had more than doubled in the year to mid-June Experts draw parallels with the credit booms that led up to the 1929 crash Analyst: ‘I’ve never seen this kind of slump before. Don’t think anyone has. China’s tumbling stock markets plunged even further today, intensifying fears the country was tail-spinning towards the biggest financial disaster since the 1929 Wall Street crash.

Almost $3trillion (£2trn) – more than the entire economic output of Brazil – has been wiped out since markets went into reverse just a few weeks ago, posing a bigger headache for many global investors than even the Greek debt crisis. China’s government, regulators and financial institutions are now waging a concerted campaign to prop up the nation’s stock markets – a move that failed spectacularly in the 1929 crash that triggered the Great Depression. The plunge in its previously booming stock markets, which had more than doubled in the year to mid-June, is a major problem for President Xi Jinping and China’s top leaders, who are already grappling with slowing growth in the world’s second largest economy and another bursting bubble.

The parallels with 1929 are, on the face of it, uncanny,’ wrote Jeremy Warner, economics commentator and assistant editor of The Daily Telegraph. ‘After more than a decade of frantic growth, extraordinary wealth creation and excess, both economies – America in 1929 and China today – are at roughly similar stages of economic development. ‘Indeed, China’s credit boom dwarfs that of even the “roaring Twenties”.’ Beijing intensified efforts at the weekend to pull China’s stock markets out of a nose-dive, with top brokerages pledging to buy massive amounts of shares and a report that the government has set up a market stabilisation fund. Beijing has also suspended new share offers in an attempt to take pressure off the market after a 30 per cent plunge in three weeks.