Paul Gillis, professor of accounting at Guanghua School of Management at Peking University, who was speaking from Silicon Valley, says it would be wrong to assume China was experiencing some 1929 Wall Street Crash moment.

"I think China's markets are still far too immature to have such a big impact on the wider economy. With 1929 there was a bubble that pushed the US into a long depression and the then government response was pretty weak," he says.

"The big difference is that the Chinese government is going to take action to make sure there isn't any contagion effect. I think the real point here is we are seeing a very necessary correction. The valuations on stocks were just not justifiable."

Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist and strategist with Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, based in Hong Kong, also believes that the Chinese stock markets and the real economy operate in almost parallel universes.

"Absolutely, I agree with that big picture. The economic implications of stock market behavior will not be as big as in some other countries that rely on equities to a larger degree," he says.

"I think regardless of what happens to the equity market in the near to medium term, the government has the financial resources over the next couple of years to control the economy and ensure it slows only moderately and does not go through a crash."

George Magnus, senior independent economic adviser at UBS in London, also does not consider there will be a lasting effect from the recent helter-skelter activity on the markets.

"The equity market isn't really a market, as we commonly understand it in financial markets. It didn't do much when China's economy was on a roll after 2008, and its steep ascent from mid-2014 to June this year occurred when corporate profits and pretty much every macro trend were deteriorating."