Reuters examines how for Xi and China Evergrande, a delicate balancing act

Reuters examined in detail how the crisis at property giant China Evergrande Group poses a $305 billion conundrum for President Xi Jinping: how to impose financial discipline without fuelling social unrest. Evergrande’s borrow-to-build model was enabled by a government reliant on property sales for revenue and unwilling to bite the bullet on runaway indebtedness for fear a collapse in prices would have devastating consequences for a country in which property accounts for 40% of household wealth, analysts, academics and economists told Reuters. Shared responsibility for Evergrande’s crisis – and worries about the repercussions of a messy collapse – complicate decisions on the fate of a conglomerate with $305 billion in debt that is scrambling to pay creditors.