China’s economy – the 2nd-largest in the world – is teetering on the brink of disaster.
Since this spring, Beijing has canceled initial public offerings, fined tech companies billions for antitrust violations, forcibly shut down China’s entire for-profit education industry, and sent CEOs running for the exits to avoid the government’s ire.
Even more dire, the Chinese megadeveloper Evergrande recently started missing payments on its more than $300 billion in debt, shaking global markets. The convulsions have woken the world up to a startling new possibility – that Beijing may be willing to allow some of its private corporate behemoths to collapse in a bid to reshape the economic model that made China a superpower.
The upheaval, spanning multiple industries and vast swaths of the country, is the result of one giant issue: China’s inability to borrow or buy its way out of its current economic crisis.
