China Evergrande Group, the world's most indebted property developer, is seeking to avert a potentially imminent liquidation with a last-minute debt restructuring proposal, Reuters reported. The defaulted company has until a Hong Kong court hearing on Monday to present a "concrete" revised debt restructuring proposal for offshore creditors, a judge said last month after its original plan had lapsed.

A brief rebound in China’s struggling economy showed worrying new signs of flickering out, heaping pressure on Beijing to take bolder steps to rev up growth, the Wall Street Journal reported. Factory activity slid deeper into contraction in November as domestic and foreign orders dried up, while, in an ominous sign for consumer spending, activity in the services sector shrank for the first time this year, according to business surveys released Thursday. Only construction registered any expansion compared with the previous month as government spending on infrastructure increased.

In Courtroom No. 29, a gray, musty cubbyhole of a space wedged into the heart of Hong Kong’s tony banking district, Judge Linda Chan presides over China’s great financial reckoning, Bloomberg News reported. One after the other, the high-powered attorneys and executives of distressed real-estate developers — the behemoths that had once powered the economic boom that made China the envy of the world — come before her to plead for their financial lives: China Evergrande Group, Sunac China Holdings, Jiayuan International Group, Kaisa Group Holdings.

Chinese authorities are taking more forceful action to contain the growing financial troubles of one of the country’s biggest shadow lenders, the Wall Street Journal reported. Police in Beijing said over the weekend that they had taken “criminal coercive measures”—a euphemism for arrests—against multiple employees of Zhongzhi Enterprise. The privately held conglomerate operates several businesses that sold investment products to many wealthy individuals and companies in China, and has struggled for months to make promised payments to investors.

Profits at China's industrial firms extended gains for a third month in October, albeit at a slower pace, suggesting more policy support from Beijing is needed to help shore up growth in the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. The 2.7% year-on-year rise sees profit growth narrow back to single-digits, following an 11.9% increase in September and a 17.2% gain in August, putting pressure on authorities to extend further assistance to manufacturers as soft global demand continues to dog policymakers heading into 2024.

Chinese authorities said they recently opened criminal investigations into the money management business of Zhongzhi Enterprise Group Co., days after the embattled shadow banking giant revealed a shortfall of $36.4 billion in its balance sheet, Bloomberg News reported. Police in Beijing said in a statement on WeChat that they took “criminal mandatory measures” against multiple suspects, identifying one by the last name Xie. They urged investors to report cases or provide leads to the authorities, including filing complaints online.

Country Garden Holdings Co. and Sino-Ocean Group have been included on China’s draft list of 50 developers eligible for a range of financing support, according to people familiar with the matter, signaling a pivot by Beijing to help some of the nation’s most distressed builders. CIFI Holdings Group Co., another builder that has missed debt payments, was also included on the so-called white list, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.

China, Japan and South Korea agreed on Sunday to restart cooperation and pave the way for a summit in the latest move to ease tensions between the Asian neighbours, Reuters reported. Even as China and the United States seek to mend frayed ties, including a summit this month between Presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden, Beijing is concerned that Washington and its key regional allies are strengthening their three-way partnership.

China left benchmark lending rates unchanged at a monthly fixing on Monday, matching expectations, as a weaker yuan continued to limit further monetary easing and policymakers waited to see the effects of previous stimulus on credit demand, Reuters reported. Recent data shows the recovery in the world's second-largest economy remains patchy with industrial output and retail sales surprising on the upside but deflation gathering pace and few signs the struggling property market will bounce back any time soon.