At the start of the year, domestic sales showed a timid but nonetheless real rebound. Then, to silence the critics and the anxious, Beijing unleashed its arsenal: $278 billion allocated to various measures to support the economy and the stock markets, such as share purchases and targeted support for certain sectors.

The executive was thus seeking to reassure the public and investors, to boost confidence and attempt to restore the former lustre of growth, which consensus forecasts at around 4.4% this year (a far cry from what China has been accustomed to in recent years).

These measures seem to have restored a little strength to the indices. Since early February, the MSCI China, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Index and the Shanghai Index (the mainland behemoths), as well as their island counterparts, the Hang Seng and the MSCI Taiwan, have adopted a bullish stance.

But the recovery is still tentative. There are still some awkward pebbles in China's shoe, first and foremost real estate (which accounts for between 15% and 30% of the country's GDP, and which has not managed to get out of the slippery slope), the big tech companies, and consumption, which remains rather timid.

On the bright side, the relatively better health of the Hong Kong and Taiwanese economies is helping to salvage the situation. In Taiwan, the strength of the semiconductor sector has enabled the MSCI Taiwan to outperform its smaller peers.

Hopes of a rate cut by the Fed are also underpinning the confidence of some analysts (such as Pictet AM), who anticipate a more generous rebound in Chinese growth, beyond the 4.8% mark. Others point to the discounted value of China's stock markets as an argument for getting in.