CEO’s Post of Ancient Poem Interpreted as Criticism of Beijing Rattles Stock Market
A Chinese billionaire rattled the stock market by quoting an ancient poem on social media, reflecting on the fall of the Qin Dynasty—the first empire in China. Although the post was later deleted, his company’s stock plunged to a new low of the year.
“The Book Burning Pit,” read as “Fen Shu Keng” in Chinese, was a seven-character quatrain written by Tang dynasty poet Zhang Jie, questioning the tyranny of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, or China, who ordered philosophical books to be burned as well as the burial of Confucian scholars alive for owning banned books.