It’s easy to be a permanent bear in any market, because history tells us they all come crashing down in the end. But my own long-term negativity towards China prompts me to nod knowingly at news that the property giant Evergrande, which has current projects in 280 Chinese cities, has filed for US bankruptcy protection as part of a restructuring of $32 billion of offshore debts; that shares in the even larger Country Garden group have plummeted after it failed to meet bond payments; and that companies accounting for some 40 percent of Chinese home sales have defaulted in the past two years.

Meanwhile, China’s exports were down 14.5 percent year-on-year last month, its domestic consumers are as nervous as its unpaid bondholders are angry — and its banking industry is certainly more fragile than published balance sheets might suggest.

[It’s not great news for the US either. Our economies are still intertwined, for one thing, and China’s been the most reliable buyer of American debt. A collapse in China would have serious consequences for the US on that basis alone, notwithstanding all the security risks that could come from the chaos of a collapse. — Ed]