A surge in bankruptcy cases in Chinese courts last year is welcome progress. The lack of creative destruction in China has been a perennial problem, exacerbating industrial overcapacity and piling mountains of bad loans on to the banking system.
But the cull of zombie companies, while positive, still falls a long way short of the thorough restructuring that China’s economy needs.
The zombie hunt did not aim at the big, lossmaking state-owned enterprises. Although the bankruptcy courts heard 54 per cent more cases than in 2015, most of the companies liquidated appear to have been privately owned and fairly small. The central government’s legion of the undead, comprised of 2,041 large companies with assets worth some $450bn, marches mindlessly on.
