When we look back at China’s extraordinary building and spending spree over the last decade — all those skyscrapers, modern apartment blocks, new airports, the Belt and Road Initiative, the upgrade of its navy, a countrywide network of bullet trains and so on — there’s one simple but important question to ask: Where did all the money come from? The simple answer is, the country’s banks. With local governments starved of cash and the central government keen to keep its own deficits u