My co-blogger Nick K had already flagged one of the first signals of a China bubble bursting when he wrote about the problems of one of their giant property developers, China Evergrande, in September of last year, all $US 300 billion worth of it.

Where’s there’s one there’s bound to be more if the underlying problem is not fixed, and so…:

Multiple sources contacted by Asia Markets, have confirmed deposits at the following six banks have been frozen since mid-April.

  • Yuzhou Xinminsheng Village Bank (located in Xuchang City, Henan Province)
  • Zhecheng Huanghuai Bank (City of Shangqui, Henan Province)
  • Shangcai Huimin Rural Bank (Zhumadian City, Henan Province)
  • New Oriental Village Bank (City of Kaifeng, Henan Province)
  • Huaihe River Village Bank (Bengbu City, Anhui Province)
  • Yixian County Village Bank (Huangshan City, Anhui Province)

It’s understood the banks with branches across the Henan and Anhui Provinces successively issued announcements in April, stating they would suspend online banking and mobile banking services due to a system upgrade.

At the same time, clients reported their electronic deposits in online accounts, mobile apps and third-party platforms could not be withdrawn.

This led to depositors rushing to local bank branches, only to be told they were unable to withdraw funds.

The report includes various videos of long lines at banks and protests so it appears to be a real thing and not just a rumour. The real question is whether the authorities can stop it, and that comes down to two questions to be answered: the degree of authority that can be exerted and the trust people have in the system. Nobody should doubt the power of the central Chinese State but when a people’s faith in institutions begins to waver there’s no force that can impose it:

“Some depositors such as Xu have already lost trust in the system. The 39-year-old said he had withdrawn all of his deposits from 10 other small banks that had promised him an annualised yield of more than 4 per cent.

The Chinese Communist Party probably does not accept that last point, as can be seen in this sad article, The Dismantling of Hong Kong, by one Karen Cheung, who is approaching the tipping point of escape:

After the national security law passed in June 2020, friends began leaving Hong Kong every few weeks. One by one, they disappeared from the camera reel on my phone, leaving me with things they couldn’t take with them: an oven, a Sodastream, a sous-vide machine, a stone diffuser, and five bottles of ground cinnamon. From 2020 through 2021, it was reported that 116,000 residents had left, often departing for countries like Britain and Canada…

This has been coming for a long time; certainly since the first mass protests in 2014 but only really since the Great Chinese Sinus AIDS Pandemic hit:

Under the guise of pandemic social-distancing, public gatherings were banned, and protests disappeared from the streets. Later in 2020, a teacher had his license revoked after showing his class a documentary featuring a pro-independence activist; in the years since, prominent commentators, including Apple Daily writer Fung Wai-kong and academic Hui Po Keung, have been arrested at the airport while attempting to leave the city. New election rules implemented in 2021 now dictate that only “patriots” can administer Hong Kong. By early 2022, at least 50 civil organizations have disbanded in the ongoing crackdown, including a pro-democracy trade-union coalition and an activist group that commemorates the Tiananmen massacre.

My, how convenient is the claim of Public Health for tinpot dictators to exert minute control over the lives of their subjects. And as she outlines, the end result was a massive increase in cases and deaths anyway, plus the usual scenes of empty supermarket shelves and a failing public health care system:

Health officers would sometimes appear on your doorstep to inform you that your building had been locked down for mandatory testing; should you test positive, you would have to undergo quarantine at an isolation facility, which Hong Kong residents have described as a “madhouse.” A Hong Kong woman told a local news outlet that despite two negative rapid tests, she was not told when she could leave; some in quarantine attempted suicide inside the facilities, according to local media reports. The uncertainty and severity of the measures made me feel like the city was collectively being punished.

I’m absolutely sure it was. In that world it’s hard to tell the difference between political prisoners arrested for leading protests or writing articles and people who failed the dreaded C-19 test, since there seems little difference in treatment between the two.

I last visited Hong Kong in 1990 and it was great: a vast, teaming, lively city with beautiful views, whether from the waterfront or The Peak. But when the British handed back control to China in 1997 I knew the place was doomed, even if it might take years to show it. The CCP and their One Country: Two Systems always smelled like propaganda to me, but I relied on the CCP’s self-interest in hanging on to a rich crown jewel, especially as Communism became more honoured in the breach in China itself, hence more than two decades of peace, relative freedoms and prosperity. But I always knew that if a clash between the “Two Systems” ever occurred then the system of Chinese Communism would prevail and be imposed, whatever the cost.

Between the rise of Xi Jinping and the return of his cult of personality as well as the re-empowering of the Central State, the myriad little Cultural Revolution touches appearing again, the Hong Kong protests and finally the C-19 disease, it’s obvious that Hong Kong will soon be no more than another grim Chinese metropolis.

Something was fundamentally broken: If Hong Kong could botch the handling of a pandemic outbreak it had two years to prepare for, what does that say about future governance? Hong Kong used to be a city that understood its capitalism depended upon appearances; ever since the national security law was enacted, however, it no longer cared about the mask slipping.

Survivors guilt and all, it is time for Ms Cheung to get the hell out – and time for us to cut as many cords with China as we can afford.