How one man endured the China stock market rollercoaster ride

By John Garnaut, Philip Wen
Updated August 1 2015 - 1:23am, first published 12:15am
A Chinese investor walks past displays of stock information at a brokerage house in Beijing.  Photo: Mark Schiefelbein
A Chinese investor walks past displays of stock information at a brokerage house in Beijing. Photo: Mark Schiefelbein

Gao Bei'er never set out to be a gambler. To the contrary, he is a university-trained salary man, a rational thinker, who does everything he can to provide opportunities that he never had to his piano-playing son. The reason he's been punting on the Shanghai Stock Exchange is because the world's richest and most powerful political party, the Chinese Communist Party, has all-but promised that he cannot lose.