Chinese leaders may be undermined as investors suffer stock market slide

More than $3tn wiped in market crash, which threatens to delay economic reforms and sully the image of China's politicians - including Xi Jinping

China's stock market crash has wiped more than $3tn off the value of its companies in less than a month, a collapse likely to hinder promised efforts to reform the economy and which may undermine the standing of leaders including the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.

The country's wider economy is relatively well insulated, despite the astounding scale of the losses, both because the value of shares traded is a far smaller portion of national income than in the west, and because they have soaked up a lesser percentage of household assets.

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