From rural bank runs to surging consumer indebtedness and an unprecedented bond restructuring, mounting signs of financial stress in China are putting the nation's policymakers to the test.
Xi Jinping's government faces an increasingly difficult balancing act as it tries to support the world's second-largest economy without encouraging moral hazard and reckless spending. While authorities have so far been reluctant to rescue troubled borrowers and ramp up stimulus, the costs of maintaining that stance are rising as defaults increase and China's slowdown deepens.
Policymakers are attempting to do the "minimum necessary to keep the economy on the rails," Andrew Tilton, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said in a Bloomberg TV interview.