A growing headache for the Chinese economy

Since 2008, an explosion in debt-fuelled expenditure on infrastructure and property, not shopping has kept the economy racing ahead. If China is to overtake the US as the world's economic powerhouse, this boom must not derail Beijing.

In the first phase of the borrowing boom, the finance ministry sanctioned a huge government-funded post-crash stimulus. In a second phase, it allowed local authorities and state-run enterprises to go on a borrowing spree.