No, I think the Chinese genuinely believed the stock market would channel the excess savings that households have into private and public companies in a controlled manner. There is a genuine mismatch, the households save more than 30% with no place to invest while the corporate sector is burdened with debt thanks to overgenerous lending after the financial crisis.
What was supposed to be a gradual 15-20 year stock rise and conversion of debt into equity has become a boom and bust in a year or so. It also looks like a lot of small time investors piled on at the peak and might be looking at large losses. So kind of sucks for the small time Chinese investor who was looking for some growth (since they cannot invest anywhere else - property is already bust)