"There are going to be calls for a more active fiscal policy and more quantitative easing but I think we have to put things in the right perspective. America is close to 3 percent growth and they are really celebrating. Maybe for China 6 percent is not that bad after all."

Magnus at UBS says the markets drama has implications for the reform agenda generally and might lead the government to tread very carefully.

"I think it is a setback for the government's insistence that it can introduce market forces into essentially a planned economy. Financial reforms were considered the most likely to make rapid headway, but I suspect even this may now be looking a little jaded."

The jitters in China's stock markets have already hit commodity prices with implications for commodity producing nations in Africa and elsewhere.

Slowing China growth had already forced the S&P GSCI commodities index down by 36 percent over the past year. The share price turmoil has seen Brent crude slump to $52.77 a barrel and iron ore fall 11 percent in just one day in early July.

Kowalczyk believes the stock market volatility may actually prove beneficial for commodity prices later in the year.

"It may be something of a paradox, but what is happening with shares does impact on growth and if the government decides to invest in infrastructure, that will lead to increased demand for commodities."

In the meantime, not only Chinese investors but those worried about the global economic outlook are waiting for the current market instability to abate.

The specter for many might not be the Wall Street Crash of 1929, but more like what happened to Japan when its stock market bubble burst at a peak in December 1989, to which it has not returned even 26 years later.

Some analysts have pointed to recent swings in the Shanghai Composite precisely mirroring what happened before the Tokyo crash.

If there was to be an impact on the Chinese economy from the recent volatility that would almost certainly feed back again into the share market.

"I am not predicting any big disaster," says Gillis at Guanghua School of Management. "But if China does plod along at 6 or 7 percent growth over the next few years, that sort of growth is not going to carry the valuations that some of the stocks are currently listed at."

andrewmoody@chinadaily.com.cn