When Paladin Energy, an Australian uranium mining company, was in need of capital in 2014, SC Lowy, a Hong Kong-based investment bank specialising in fixed income, offered it debt finance. Paladin considered the offer — but ended up selling equity investments to Chinese firms instead. Among them was a 24 per cent stake in a uranium mine, which it sold to China National Nuclear. Last week, after its efforts to sell the remainder of the mine to its Chinese partner fell through, Paladin filed for administration in Perth.

Back in 2011, when India’s Reliance Communications wanted to purchase telecoms equipment, China Development Bank stepped up to provide almost $2bn in vendor financing on far more attractive terms than others were offering. The next year, CDB, ICBC and China ExIm Bank provided Reliance with another $1.2bn, allowing the telecoms group to repay a far more expensive foreign currency bond. But Reliance continued to struggle in the face of stiff competition and government-fixed tariffs. Its short-term debt is almost eight times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. In June, the firm obtained a seven-month reprieve on payments from its bankers, including CDB, on nearly $7bn in debt as it attempts to sell assets to repay creditors.

When Asian companies ranging from Adani Ports in India to Chinese conglomerate Fosun International to Indonesia’s PT Japfa Comfeed were raising money in the Asian high-yield bond market in the first half of this year, up to 80 per cent of the demand came from Chinese individuals and companies, according to SC Lowy. The first half of the year has been a banner one for issuance — largely thanks to Chinese demand for dollar denominated debt.