On the outskirts of Beijing, a banker smartly dressed in black slacks and white-collared shirt stands guard in front of an Evergrande residential development as trucks carrying tonnes of cement rumble by.
Construction at Evergrande Royal Peak — one of hundreds of projects in China involving the world’s most indebted real estate developer — was halted in July as a liquidity crisis at the group hampered its ability to pay contractors and suppliers.
But work resumed early this month, according to people at the site, even as the group’s plight and expectations of an imminent default sparked a global reckoning over the health of China’s vast property sector, an industry that underpins the country’s wider economic model.