Bonds of Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd., a developer based in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, plunged to record lows after the resignation of its chairman triggered a default on one of its loans, Bloomberg News reported. The developer’s $800 million of 8.875 percent notes due 2018 and sold to investors at par in March 2013 tumbled to 40.9 cents on the dollar as of 5:02 p.m. in Hong Kong, from 66.3 cents on Dec. 31, sending yields to 45.7 percent. Kaisa was unable to repay a HK$400 million ($51.6 million) loan from HSBC Holdings Plc on Dec.

In the shadow of a group of enormous smokestacks and abandoned foundries, a peeling sign welcomes visitors to the Wenxi Steel Industrial Park. But in the nearby village, the working-age men and many of the women have gone, leaving only the elderly and the very young, the Financial Times reported.

In a gritty industrial park here, 59-year-old Zhou Shoufang is leading hundreds of co-workers in a fight for pension benefits at a toy factory, The Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Zhou is part of China’s first generation of migrant workers, people who left their farms decades ago to work on assembly lines in coastal cities and who are now nearing retirement age. Such workers have until recently focused on securing higher wages.

Every urban real estate market is different in mainland China, driven by myriad municipal and provincial regulations and the varying strength of local economies. But the outcome is the same: The property market is under serious pressure, the International New York Times reported. Prices for newly constructed housing fell 1 percent to 9 percent in recent months in all 70 mainland cities tracked by the national government, according to data released Thursday. Prices kept falling in November compared with October in all but three cities, where they were unchanged.

Showing classic symptoms of a mania, Chinese investors are borrowing heavily to buy stocks and flipping them quickly, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. On average, they are holding them for barely two weeks, compared with four months in the US. This is just the latest frenzy to hit China and its origins date back to 2008. After the global financial crisis hit, Beijing tried to sustain its growth rate by pouring record amounts of money into the economy.

China has set up a fund to bail out trust firms that run into trouble, putting a safety net under a major portion of the country’s fast-growing shadow-banking sector, which has played a big role in financing riskier areas of the economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. The creation of the fund was announced by the China Banking Regulatory Commission and the Ministry of Finance on Friday, on the heels of an insurance program that will soon provide protection for bank deposits.

China is adding more cash to its financial system to spur growth, according to people with knowledge of the matter, even as the country’s leadership expresses a willingness to accept a slower economic pace—what President Xi Jinping has called a “new normal,” The Wall Street Journal reported. China’s central bank is pumping about 400 billion yuan (nearly $65 billion) into the country’s banking system, these people said, as it seeks to help Chinese banks lend money to reinvigorate weakening growth.

Strikes by thousands of teachers frustrated by low salaries and mandatory payments to pension plans have spread across cities in northeast China, state news media reported on Monday, the International New York Times reported. The strikes began last week and now encompass a half-dozen cities or counties surrounding the city of Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province, an area of the country where economic growth has long been relatively slow. Classes in some primary and high schools have been suspended, the reports said.

South America’s most economically troubled country, facing fears of a debt default amid tumbling oil prices and a cash crunch, has been thrown a lifeline by its largest lender, China, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Asian giant loosened repayment terms on the nearly $50 billion in loans it has granted Venezuela since 2007, according to Venezuela’s Official Gazette. And President Nicolás Maduro said in a speech last week that his finance minister, Rodolfo Marco, would soon travel to China to try to secure new loans. Mr.

Chains of guarantees, in which companies back loans to other firms, are causing pain for the wider Chinese economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. The central bank cut benchmark lending and deposit rates on Friday to reduce financing costs for companies and help revive growth. Guarantees played a large role in fueling China’s rapid debt expansion over the last six years.