Man, what is happening with Chinese stocks? For about two years, Beijing has encouraged ordinary families to move their savings from bank deposits into stocks to help fund China’s AI push. Many listened and went all in. Retail investors oversubscribed Unitree’s IPO 8,000 times, and the stock has halved since it began trading in August. AI stocks now account for 42% of China’s total market value. The CSI 300, China’s top 300 companies, peaked on June 22, 2026. Since mid-August, it hasn’t had a single up week: 11 straight down weeks through October 23, the longest run since the index was born in 2005. On Thursday, October 22, it closed 20% below the June peak, officially a bear market. The AI stocks at its heart, tracked by the STAR 50, lost about $480 billion, or 40%, in under four months. And it hit retail investors hard. As the big institutions sold, the stocks retail investors owned the most fell the most. Now the drama. Beijing’s “national team,” the state-backed funds that buy to calm the market, has been buying since July, and last week it went all out. About $19 billion poured into the funds it’s known to use, the most since the trade-war crash in April 2025. On Friday, the index jumped 1.7%, and for a moment it looked like a turnaround. It still closed the week down, red for the eleventh week running. Then Monday closed down 0.04%. The state’s biggest push in a year and a half, and still not one green week. Everyone, this is what we call a slow bleed where every rescue looks like the bottom and isn’t. Beijing can buy shares, but it can’t buy belief. Belief comes back only when Chinese AI companies show real profits and Chinese consumers start spending again. Until then, watch every weekly close, because the state can slow the fall, but it can’t stop it.