Chinese stocks plunged 8.5 per cent at the end of a tumultuous session dubbed “Black Monday” by no less than Beijing’s official mouthpiece, intensifying concerns over a made-in-China economic slowdown that stands to reverberate across the globe. Reflecting these fears, spooked investors sold off almost every asset class in almost every market. As Shanghai racked up its worst day since February 2007, all Asian indices fell; oil prices hit a six-year low; and average commodity prices traded at their lowest levels this century. Even the price of gold, a traditional haven, fell 0.6 per cent to break a five-day winning streak. Global stock markets have lost more than $5.5tn since the People’s Bank of China devalued the renminbi on August 11. Beijing couched the move as market liberalisation, but numerous analysts saw it as a bid to boost exports after other stimulative policies failed to spur economic recovery. Just as China once brought welcome disinflation to consumers across the world it now stands to export its own economic weakness. At 15 per cent of the world’s economy it packs a far bigger punch now too, contributing half of total growth in recent years.