International investors are too fixated on trade tension between the US and China. Instead, they would do well to take heed as Beijing continues a war against non-bank lenders and fintech companies that is tightening liquidity and spooking investors in mainland China, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. Money remains tight on the mainland even as financial stability has replaced deleveraging as the official order of the day.

Teachers threatening to stop repaying loans from the Government Savings Bank are risking bankruptcy and disqualification from government service, deputy justice permanent secretary Tawatchai Thaikyo warned on Tuesday. He was responding to the announcement by leaders of a network of professional teachers' organisations meeting in Maha Sarakham on Saturday that their 450,000 members would stop paying off debts to the state-owned bank next month in protest at increasing interest rates, the Bangkok Post reported. "Be prepared to become bankrupt if you owe more than 1 million baht...

Shares of Asiana Airlines shot up more than 20 per cent on Tuesday morning on a media report that SK Group is considering buying the troubled airline - a claim the conglomerate later denied, the Financial Times reported. Asiana shares climbed as much as 23 per cent to Won5,130 ($4.57), their highest since May 21, after local online media News Tomato said SK Group, South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate, is considering a takeover.  But SK Holdings, the holding company of SK Group, denied the media report in a regulatory filing, making Asiana shares give up much of the gains.

A homegrown Singaporean company that owns one of the financial center’s three seawater desalination plants is struggling to stay afloat, a Bloomberg View reported. Whether Hyflux Ltd. sinks or swims will matter to creditors and shareholders. The strategic stakes, though, are far higher. Now that Singapore’s old foe Mahathir Mohamad is back as Malaysia’s prime minister, and once again threatening to renegotiate a 1962 agreement to supply raw water to the city-state, making sure the Hyflux plant is owned until 2038 by a friendly buyer could become an issue of national security.

China’s savers are rushing to pull money from peer-to-peer lending platforms, accelerating a contraction of the $195 billion industry and testing the government’s ability to maintain calm as it cracks down on risky shadow-banking activities, Bloomberg News reported. In some cases, savers are turning up at the offices of P2P operators to demand repayment, spooked by reports of defaults, sudden closures and frozen funds. At least 49 platforms have failed in the past two weeks, adding to 80 cases in June, the biggest monthly tally in two years, according to Shanghai-based Yingcan Group.

One China hedge fund is adding to stocks in the nation even as a rout deepened losses in its portfolio and prompted some peers to duck for cover, Bloomberg News reported. Springs China Opportunities Fund is using the “panic selloff” to increase its holdings of “oversold and undervalued” companies, it told investors in a letter seen by Bloomberg News. The letter was sent after the fund lost an estimated 17 percent this year through July 6. The Shanghai Composite Index has dropped as much as 12 percent since the end of May, as the trade spat with the U.S.

Goodbye credit boom, hello insolvency limbo. In June, precision- engineering firm CW Advanced Technologies became the latest issuer to seek a court order to stave off creditors, after its plan to re-tap the bond market to redeem its first series of notes got quashed by poor market sentiment, the Business Times reported. Since November 2015, at least 13 issuers have defaulted on a total of 23 Singdollar bonds by missing coupon payments, failing to repay note holders at maturity, filing for judicial management, filing for bankruptcy protection and in one case breaching a financial covenant.

Rising Treasury yields, trade-war concerns and Chinese defaults have wiped out $45 billion since the start of the year in the market value of dollar notes sold by Asian and international borrowers, according to Singapore-based BondEvalue. “High net-worth investors not only saw great losses in their leveraged positions, but also faced difficulties in selling off bonds to cut their losses,” said the firm, which provides bond services to private banks, in a note released earlier this week, Bloomberg News reported.

China’s development banks — the biggest lenders in the sector worldwide — are ramping up co-operation with overseas financial institutions after problems with their international investment projects, the Financial Times reported. The China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China (Ex-Im Bank) are seeking to spread the burden of funding international projects, officials and executives said.

On the surface, China’s economy is humming along smoothly. It’s the numbers behind the numbers that point to mounting challenges for the world’s other economic superpower, the International New York Times reported. The Chinese government on Monday reported that the economy grew 6.7 percent in the three months that ended in June compared with a year ago. That is pretty close to the rate that China has reported quarter after quarter over the past two and a half years. The pace puts it comfortably within its target of achieving growth of around 6.5 percent for the full year.