Xi's big stimulus blitz aims to draw a line under China's slowdown

For months, President Xi Jinping appeared unfazed by slowing growth as stocks sank, prices fell and discontent grew around China.

The past week has shown he is not willing to tolerate any more pain.

The People's Bank of China began the charge to revive sentiment on Sept 24 in a rare televised press briefing beamed live around the world, opening its war chest to stock markets and making money cheaper to borrow.

The next day, it kept the positive news flowing by lowering the interest rate on its one-year loans to lenders by the most on record, while the government issued rare cash handouts and floated new subsidies for some jobless graduates.

The 24-man Politburo led by Mr Xi followed that on Sept 26 with more pro-growth goodies, vowing to boost fiscal spending and making its first pledge to stop property prices from "declining".

It also unveiled a new focus on boosting consumption, saying this was "necessary to respond to the concerns of the masses".

The efforts extended to Sept 27 when the head of the National Development and Reform Commission pledged "full support" to private Chinese firms to help them overcome difficulties, saying such companies and entrepreneurs are "one of our own".

The top leader's policy pivot gave the nation's troubled benchmark CSI 300 Index its biggest weekly gain in more than 15 years. American billionaire David Tepper declared he was buying more of "everything" China after the sweeping stimulus.

The barrage of stimulus measures marked a sea change in Mr Xi's approach to managing the world's second-largest economy - also Singapore's single largest export market - after proudly resisting big stimulus for so long.