The Chinese equity market is in dire straits, but don’t worry: The Party’s on it.

Of course, it was the Party’s wildly mercurial approach to regulation, rectification and disciplinary action (and Xi Jinping’s Mao delusions) which put local stocks behind the eight-ball in the first place. But you know what they say: The best person to extricate you from a bad situation is the person who put you in it.

On February 2, Chinese equities capped a rough week with what one mainstream media outlet (the same outlet which sparked a rally the prior week by conveying rumors about a two-trillion yuan rescue plan) aptly described as a “chaotic” session. Specifically, the CSI 300 was down around 3% before paring losses, likely on state-buying, to close around 1.2% lower. It was a horrible week.

The 4.6% weekly decline was the 10th in 12 and probably would’ve been the 11th in a dozen were it not for the above-mentioned rescue rumors which briefly (note the emphasis) helped the benchmark bounce from a five-year low. (Poor PMI data for January was the death knell for the short-lived rebound.)

With the situation deteriorating by the day, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (that’s the securities watchdog if you’re not familiar) said Beijing’s determined to maintain stability in capital markets (too late!) and is “resolute” in preventing “abnormal fluctuations.”

There’s a lot of concern in China around so-called “knock-ins” (an adverse event for holders of popular index-linked structured derivatives products) and margin calls.

Margin debt outstanding fell the most in 22 months last week.

On Sunday, the CSRC resorted to threats, as it’s wont to do from time to time. Beijing, the regulator warned, will crack down “severely” on any “illegal” activity in markets.

As for what constitutes “illegal,” your guess is as good as anyone’s. The Party will tell you it’s blatant instances of manipulation, fraud and opportunistic short-selling, but the truth is, “illegal” means whatever Beijing wants it to mean.

That kind of ambiguity and the appearance of generalized disarray prompted foreign investors to hit the exits for a sixth straight month in January.

Net selling through the links came to around $2 billion last month. As Bloomberg noted, the exodus since August now exceeds CNY200 billion.

The only way to stop this is for Xi Jinping to telegraph something like an earnest appreciation for what lackluster domestic demand and abysmal foreign investor sentiment are trying to tell him about his approach to running the world’s second-largest economy. Xi’s assurances (like those delivered during a red-carpet trip to San Francisco in November) aren’t genuine and notwithstanding fawning US executives and a compliant populace at home, everyone knows it.

Anyway, expecting self-reflection from Xi is a pipe dream. The Chinese people have neither the will nor the capacity to bring about a change in government, so Xi it’ll be. The best anybody can hope for is that he somehow manages to stabilize local sentiment such that the domestic economic environment improves durably. That wouldn’t solve the main problem (which, again, is Xi himself) but it’d solve enough problems that everyone would once again be willing to give the Party the benefit of the doubt barring, of course, an attempt to seize Taiwan.

In the meantime, an academic at a Chinese think tank has an idea for stocks: A half-trillion dollar stabilization fund, which could be topped up periodically. That’s according to an interview published over the weekend by the 21st Century Business Herald, a Chinese daily. The envisioned fund would be capitalized by the vaunted “national team” (the confederation of state-linked entities which propped up the market during 2015’s crash), but would be more “transparent,” the report suggested. (Transparently what? Absurd?)