In a related story, The Wall Street Journal reported that ineffective monetary policy is hindering Beijing’s efforts to pep up growth, with little of the extra cash it has pumped into the financial system filtering into the real economy. China’s government is taking other measures to stimulate economic expansion, including tax cuts and selective spending on infrastructure. Yet this stimulus is likely to be less effective than before, given a much larger economy and years of rapid debt growth—making central bank action more important.

Financial markets are in danger of jumping to the wrong conclusion in their euphoric reaction to China’s record level of lending in January and February. They seem to be assuming that history is repeating itself, with the economy set to enjoy the same impact from stimulus spending in 2019 as it did in 2009 and 2016. But the available evidence suggests a very different conclusion, and one not so positive for financial assets, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. On the surface, this year’s jump in China’s total social financing (TSF) seems to support the bullish argument.

A quarter-century ago, Beijing Electron teetered on the brink of collapse, a government behemoth brought to its knees by superior foreign technology. Decades later, fueled by billions in state funds, a re-christened BOE Technology Group Co. does business with Apple Inc. and has its sights on becoming the biggest supplier of next-generation screens, Bloomberg News reported. It’s a turnaround authored by Wang Dongsheng, an accountant who took over an ailing vacuum-tube factory -- then begged his underlings for bailout money, at one point dabbling in producing mouthwash to make ends meet.

China’s HNA is selling down its prized airline holdings, a strategy reversal that underlines the scale of its struggle to pare its debt burden, the Financial Times reported. The sale on Wednesday of budget carrier HK Express to Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific comes as problems grow for the finance-to-aviation conglomerate, once among China’s most globally acquisitive companies. In the past two years HNA has sold more than $40bn in assets to trim a debt pile twice that size.

There’s plenty of bad debt to go around for investors in distressed assets in China. The question is how to extract value from them. For years, Chinese banks shoveled nonperforming loans to asset managers set up by the government, which sought to get back what they could while warehousing what was irrecoverable. Now, as commercial lenders try to shift record amounts of soured loans off their books, these assets are finding a home outside the state-sanctioned bad debt managers, a Bloomberg View reported.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. may get its cheapest dollar-denominated syndicated loan ever as it negotiates with banks to amend terms of its existing $4 billion borrowing, Bloomberg News reported. The Chinese Internet giant wants to cut the interest margin of the facility that it signed in May 2016 by 25 basis points to 85 basis points over Libor, said people familiar with the matter. That would be the cheapest rate ever for Alibaba, Bloomberg-compiled data show. It’s also the lowest margin among outstanding loans of local peers Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Baidu Inc, according to the data.

Dire warnings about the risks from China’s debt build-up have existed for nearly a decade though the crisis that many expect has yet to arrive. But with the world’s second-biggest economy growing at its weakest pace since 1990 and US tariffs adding pressure, investors are still nervous, the Financial Times reported. “Most countries that permit rapid credit expansions face financial crises or a sharp slowdown in the economy as risks in the financial system emerge,” says Logan Wright, director of China markets research at research provider Rhodium Group.

China’s most prominent development bank has been noticeably low-profile lately, a Bloomberg View reported. For the last decade, the 16 trillion yuan ($2.39 trillion) China Development Bank, and its less-muscular cousins Agricultural Development Bank of China Ltd. and Export-Import Bank of China, were on the forefront of every major stimulus push. In 2008, CDB financed the 4 trillion yuan spending pledge by the Ministry of Finance, its former controlling shareholder.

Many of the recent debates about Chinese takeovers and investments in Europe have been conducted in the opaque language of security. Spooks in Britain and Germany openly worry about the consequences of allowing Chinese groups such as Huawei into their 5G mobile networks. A recent delegation from Berlin even visited China to explore the intriguing idea of a no-spying pact.

Chinese developer Tahoe Group is seeking to offload a dozen projects that it bought for at least 40 billion yuan (US$5.97 billion) in the past two years, according to sources familiar with the matter, the South China Morning Post reported. It is the latest builder to resort to asset sales to raise cash in the face of mounting debts.