When China’s President Xi Jinping launched a supply-side structural reform plan in 2015, financial deleveraging was one of its key goals. The deleveraging campaign was meant to curb risks in the country’s overheating financial markets through crack downs on shadow financing and tightening asset management rules. But three years down the line, Chinese companies are being handed a reality check. After years of bingeing on debt, many firms are now struggling to raise new funds to repay old debts after the deleveraging drive has staunched liquidity and led to a slew of corporate bond defaults. By the end of June, the ... (full story)