A think tank claims that while the collapse of Evergrande is not China’s “Lehman moment,” it does make economic recovery more difficult.
China's crumbling property sector, its stock market crash, and its gummed-up economy have drawn some comparisons to the 2008 crash in the US.
A few weeks ago, the Chinese property giant Evergrande received a liquidation order from a Hong Kong court, forcing the sale of its assets to repay the company's $300 billion worth of debt.
This has spurred on the question: is the Evergrande collapse China's "Lehman moment?"
The answer, according to one think tank, is no. But it does pose an obstacle to an economic rebound.
"Evergrande's bankruptcy is not China's Lehman moment; its downfall is unlikely to immediately trigger a contagion across the entirety of China's financial system," Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a Council of Foreign Relations expert, wrote on Tuesday.
Back in 2008, Lehman Brot...