The Chinese government is trying to rid the stock market of collusion between power and money by stepping up investigations of securities companies, analysts said, while warning of shocks to the markets that had just stabilized. Three of China’s top 10 brokerage companies by assets – Citic Securities, Guosen Securities and Haitong Securities – reported last week that they were being investigated by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), all suspected for having breached securities regulations. “Clearly Xi Jinping is trying to change a rather long-held culture where those who obtain powerful positions believe that the rules don’t apply to them, and that clearly is changing and he has changed behavior,” said Professor Paul Gillis, from Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. Citic Securities President Cheng Boming was taken by police for investigation in September, while Guosen Securities’ President Chen Hongqiao, hanged himself in his Shenzhen home in late October, after his former boss Zhang Yujun, an Assistant Chairman at the CSRC, was taken in for questioning in September. In November, CSRC Vice Chairman Yao Gang became the most senior figure to be caught up in the crackdown. Shares of all the brokerage companies plunged on November 27, as panicked investors dumped their holdings, the South China Morning Post reports. The Shanghai Composite Index sank 5.5% on November 27, the steepest percentage decline since August 25, wiping out all the gains for the index since early November.