Chinese police arrest man for spreading stock market rumours amid prolonged equities slump

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A man in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan has been arrested for spreading rumours about the stock market amid a crackdown by law enforcement on acts that undermine the country’s fragile economic recovery.

A 30-year-old man in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan and a commercial hub, was detained over suspicions he used news about China’s stock market from foreign media to fabricate stories, China’s top police agency, the Ministry of Public Security, said on Wednesday morning.

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The ministry’s Bureau of Network Security Protection said in a briefing posted on its public WeChat account that the man, surnamed Wang, had been arrested by Chengdu police.

According to the briefing, Wang tampered with part of a page published by a foreign news media organisation to fabricate false information about China’s securities financing policy “based on subjective assumptions and the pursuit of mental stimulation”.

The statement said that the fake news was spread on websites and social media, which “seriously disrupted the stable operation of the securities market, seriously misled investors and the public, and seriously damaged the online public opinion environment”.

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Police in Sichuan said the local securities regulators cooperated in the investigation.

The authorities did not specify the content of the rumours involved or the companies that were mentioned in the false information.

The statement added that the police would continue cracking down on online rumours to “safeguard China’s political security and social stability”.

Wang’s arrest comes amid a prolonged stock market slump as China struggles to revive its economy.

Beijing has unveiled several measures to improve the business environment. It has also pledged to defend its private sector and has repeatedly criticised the “badmouthing” of China’s economy.

Several government bodies, including the Cyberspace Administration of China – the country’s top internet watchdog, and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate – the nation’s top prosecutor, have launched crackdowns on activities suspected of undermining the private sector.

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Earlier this month, officials from China’s top spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, pledged they would be “proactive” in protecting the country’s financial stability and monitoring risks in the sector.

Wednesday morning’s briefing did not mention what kind of punishment Wang could face, but according to the legal text it cited, he could be sentenced to up to 10 days in detention and fined.

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China has seen a growing number of cases in which law enforcement officers target people deemed to have undermined the economy with “rumours”.

Securities regulators in the northwestern province of Gansu on Monday announced that an internet user had been fined 200,000 yuan (US$28,000) for making up information about futures trading.

In May, a Shanghai company was also fined for providing false information about futures trading, according to mainland media reports.

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