Why so many Chinese are drowning in debt l Some contemplate suicide. Others vaunt their folly as influencers

> The tough part was dealing with the pressure dogs hired by online lenders from whom she had borrowed money for personal use. They repeatedly called Ms Bai, her friends and her relatives, often from different phones so they could not be blocked. She is particularly angry about the harassment of her parents. “In China”, she says, “we generally don’t tell our parents about bad news, so they were very, very affected.” Ms Bai became depressed and thought of suicide. Her husband divorced her.

>Regulations relating to the debt-collecting industry are new and patchily enforced in China. Rather than helping Ms Bai, **a court put her on a “social credit” blacklist, which meant she could no longer fly, use high-speed trains or stay at luxury hotels. So where can debtors find relief? Support groups for them have been growing online. Jiaqi Guo of the University of Turku in Finland has been studying one of them, called the Debtors Alliance, on Douban, a social-networking site. Founded in 2019, it now has more than 60,000 members. Dr Guo says users often discuss shesi, meaning “social death”. It refers to the destruction of relationships caused by “contact bombing”, as the debt collectors’ phone calls are described.**

Contacting and harassing your relatives and friends about your personal debt to shame you into paying up is kind of crazy.

Oth it allows companies to keep running without being profitable, so I think I know what authorities will do.