Seeking Security

Think back to 2008. Things were humming along with the global economy and then bang! The bottom fell out of the housing market in the United States. People couldn't pay their loans. And you know what happened next.There's growing fear something like that could play out again, this time starting in China. One of China's largest real estate developers, China Evergrande, is on the brink of insolvency.Related: Aukus security pact sparks Chinese and French ireEvergrande, whose struggle to avoid defaulting on billions of dollars of debt has rattled global markets, says it will pay interest due Thursday to bondholders in China, but gave no sign of plans to pay on a separate bond abroad.The Chinese government, meanwhile, added to investor anxiety Wednesday by staying silent about whether it might intervene to restructure Evergrande Group's $310 billion debt.Related: Chinese suppliers face ambiguous global supply chain Economists say Beijing can prevent a Chinese credit crunch but that it wants to avoid appearing to a