China stocks slump as economic gloom spreads

About three weeks ago, at a meeting chaired by Xi Jinping, China's leader, officials acknowledged that China's economy was facing "new difficulties and challenges." According to the official Xinhua News Agency's summary of the Politburo meeting, officials promised to juice the economy, which had started to rebound at the start of the year after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted but had been struggling. The economic troubles, they said, arose from flagging domestic demand and a "grim and complex" global economy, among other factors. Chinese stocks jumped at the time, even though officials laid out only vague plans, like using "countercyclical" regulations,…