"China has also taken steps to gain greater control over its technology sector, which flourished largely free from government influence.

Approvals of new video game titles have been frozen since a shift in regulation that has given the Communist Party’s propaganda department a direct role, an unusual degree of power over what had been a government process. Tencent, China’s video game giant and one of the world’s largest technology companies, has lost nearly one-third of its market value. Tencent declined to comment.

Private entrepreneurs are loath to speak out for fear of attracting official condemnation. But signs of distress aren’t hard to find.

Last month, Chen Shouhong, the founder of an investment research firm, asked a group of executive M.B.A. students — many of whom already owned publicly listed companies — to choose between panic and anxiety to describe how they feel about the economy. An overwhelming majority chose panic, according to a transcript. Mr. Chen declined to be interviewed."