Bank of America warns of ‘lethal’ damage to China’s financial system as deflation deepens

‘Deflation, Devaluation, and Default’ loom in China this year. The denouement for Shanghai’s bourse will not be pretty, says the US bank.

China is at mounting risk of a financial crisis this year as growth sputters and deflationary pressures trigger a wave of defaults, Bank of America has warned.

The US lender told clients that a confluence of forces are coming together that threaten to chill the speculative mania on the Shanghai stock exchange and to expose the underlying fragility of China’s $26 trillion edifice of debt.

“A credit crunch is highly probable,” said the bank in a report entitled “Deflation, Devaluation, and Default”, written by David Cui and Tracy Tian.