China's Stock Market Crash on February 5, 2024: The Bigger Debt Story

China's stock market entered 2024 in free fall.

But if we look only at share prices, we miss the larger picture. So what is the shortest possible account of this sell-off?

Two forces are driving it. One is the collapse in underlying economic fundamentals. The other is the use of the market decline as part of a wider restructuring of local government debt.