Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd.’s bonds and shares tumbled after a wealth-management product guaranteed by the company missed a payment deadline, Bloomberg News reported. China’s dollar high-yield debt fell for the 10th day in 11 after yields climbed above 21%. Trading was halted in two yuan bonds from other real estate firms after they plunged more than 20%. Spiking borrowing costs are making it all but impossible for developers to refinance debt, while property market curbs are weighing on home sales.

For more than a year, residents living in a remote border town have been China’s foot soldiers in the battle against the coronavirus, enduring lockdown after lockdown to shield the rest of the country from contagion, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mothers in Ruili, a jewelry-trading center on China’s border with Myanmar, post despairingly about their toddlers being numb to regular swab tests—one said her 2-year-old has gotten 100 in his lifetime. Others post about spending months on end in isolation, despite test after test coming back negative.

Property developers in China looking to raise badly needed cash by selling assets are finding it hard to strike deals as potential buyers in the sector hoard funds after home sales plunged and Beijing stepped up its borrowing crackdown, Bloomberg News reported. China Evergrande Group last month ended discussions to sell a controlling stake in its property-management business that would have raised about $2.6 billion. A plan to unload a trophy office tower in Hong Kong also stumbled, while Modern Land China Co.

Chinese developer Modern Land said on Monday a default on a bond repayment last week has pulled forward repayment dates for a further $321 million worth of notes, and the company withdrew an interim dividend to hold on to cash, Reuters reported. The development highlights the impact of China Evergrande Group, which narrowly averted a costly default, on the rest of the high-yield sector as liquidity dries up and sales slow. Modern Land said last week it had not repaid principal and interest on its 12.85% senior notes with an outstanding principal of $250 million.

China Evergrande Group avoided default for a second time by making an overdue interest payment on dollar bonds shortly before the end of a 30-day grace period, the Wall Street Journal reported. Evergrande, one of China’s largest real-estate developers, made a coupon payment that was originally due on Sept. 29, the people said. Evergrande was on the hook to pay about $45 million of interest on $951 million of bonds, which have a 9.5% coupon and mature in 2024, according to CreditSights research.

China’s largest cross-border brokers plummeted in U.S. trading after a central bank official questioned the legitimacy of their operations amid Beijing’s continuing crackdown on private enterprise, Bloomberg News reported. These online brokers are engaged in “illegal financial activities” because they have no “driving licenses” to operate in China, Sun Tianqi, a senior People’s Bank of China official wrote in an article published on the website of Finance 40 Forum. Sun didn’t name the brokers, and added that calling them illegal has nothing to do China’s capital control rules.

Junk-bond issuance by China’s riskier companies has nearly ground to a halt, creating more challenges for the country’s real-estate developers that need to roll over more than $40 billion in dollar debt by the end of next year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Sales of new junk bonds in dollars by Chinese borrowers this month have fallen by about 90% from their five-year average to $352 million as of Wednesday, Dealogic data shows, reflecting just two deals from smaller developers.

Chinese regulators have told developers they need to meet all their debt obligations including offshore bond payments after an unexpected default cast doubt on the integrity of the market, Bloomberg News reported. Officials from the National Development and Reform Commission and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange told developers at a meeting in Beijing on Tuesday that they must make payments on time if possible. Any developer that can’t meet its debt obligations must inform regulators immediately.

Modern Land defaulted on a bond payment, the latest Chinese property developer to do so, adding to worries about the wider impact of the debt crisis at behemoth China Evergrande Group, and weighing on shares in the sector, Reuters reported. Modern Land (China) Co Ltd said in a filing on Tuesday that it had not repaid principal and interest on its 12.85% senior notes that matured on Monday due to "unexpected liquidity issues". The bond has outstanding principal of $250 million.

Luckin Coffee Inc. reached a $175 million settlement of shareholder class-action claims that the Chinese rival to Starbucks fraudulently inflated its share price by falsifying revenue, Reuters reported. Lawyers for the shareholders called the all-cash settlement, filed on Monday night, an “excellent result,” citing Luckin’s liquidation proceeding in the Cayman Islands and its related filing for protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.