Social mood in China extremely negative

Fury unabated on websites

Despite signs the government may be clamping down on traditional media, internet users were still furious over the handling of the accident on July 23 near the eastern city of Wenzhou , in which at least 40 people died and 190 were injured after one bullet train rammed into the back of another that had stalled.

I saw one television report where the anchor lashed out at the government and listed a number of scandals that have occurred in the recent past. For the first day following the accident, the station spent 30 minutes on the story, but the next day, coverage was down to a few minutes and avoided the most sensitive issues. Anger is in search of a target here and the rail disaster provided one.

Against gold, the Chinese stock market is at a new post-2008 low.