China’s local-debt crisis is about to get nasty

Locals in guiyang have a keen sense of the distance between them and everywhere else. Over cold rice noodles bathed in chilli paste and vinegar, an elderly resident of the city in south-west China lists a number of recent economic achievements of his home town—namely, the shortening of travel times to other places. Chengdu, a megacity in nearby Sichuan, is now just three hours away by high-speed rail. Chongqing, another metropolis, can be reached in just over two. China’s Herculean construction of uber-fast trainlines has even brought Hong Kong, the southern financial centre, within a seven-hour ride. These travel times are rattled off with considerable pride. Not long ago they would have taken three to four times as long.