China's stock markets have been among the world's best performers this year, with signs that its various stimulus programmes are keeping its economy growing strongly amid the global slump.
Optimism over China has spilled into the neighbouring markets of Taiwan – itself a beneficiary of improving cross-straits relations – and Hong Kong. Both have significantly outperformed the US this year, begging the question: are they dancing to the tune of mainland China rather than the US?
Steven Sun, senior China strategist at HSBC, said: “Certainly you can say this is a greater China bloc, and it makes sense for policies made in mainland China to have more impact in either Hong Kong or Taiwan so, as a result, if the market correlation becomes higher, it would not be surprising.”