As its debt mania progressed, more of the lending was diverted into wasteful speculation. Normally, frenzied borrowing occurs amid excitement about a new innovation like the internet. But this spree spread on conviction that Beijing, obsessed with hitting its growth target, would not let lenders or borrowers fail. More and more unqualified players got in the game. The state banks soon had to compete with “shadow banks,” including crowdfunding websites that offered ordinary people a chance to invest in debt for as little as one renminbi (15 cents), promising fantastic returns.
Try as the Chinese authorities might to steer the money into industry, they could never fully commit to stopping shadow banks from financing an increasingly questionable array of borrowers speculating in real estate. When I visited Shanghai in August 2010, I was stunned to see apartment blocks rising two to three rows deep all along the 110-mile route to Hangzhou. Many of the biggest debtors are front companies set up by local governments to evade national regulators. Small cities are borrowing to build futuristic museums, aquatic centers and apartment blocks that exceed local demand and are often as empty as ghost towns.
My research shows that during the 30 worst debt manias of the past 50 years, private debt — which in China is often held by local governments — rose over five years by at least 40 percentage points as a share of gross domestic product. In all 30 cases, the economy slowed sharply, typically by more than half, in the next five years.
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