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| Once a beneficiary of China’s property boom, Lan Mingqiang is now an unwitting casualty of its unraveling. |
| 兰明强（音）曾是中国房地产繁荣的受益者，现在却在不知不觉中成为房地产泡沫破裂的受害者。 |
| The financial troubles at one real estate company, Country Garden, have left him unable to pay the school fees for his son, who is starting seventh grade. Country Garden owes $21,000 to his company, which makes fences and billboards on construction sites. Now, with Country Garden days away from a default, this money is more out of reach than ever. |
| 房地产公司碧桂园的财务危机导致他无法为即将上初一的儿子支付学费。他的公司为建筑工地生产围栏和广告牌，碧桂园欠他近15万元。现在，碧桂园离违约还有几天的时间，这笔钱比以往任何时候都更加遥不可及。 |
| “Nowadays, real estate is hard,” Mr. Lan said. He recently gave up on the business and left his family in the southern city of Chongqing to try to make a living selling snacks to tourists in Zhengzhou, a city in the north of China. |
| “现在房地产难做，”兰明强说。他最近放弃了生意，离开了南方城市重庆的家人，到北方城市郑州向游客卖小吃谋生。 |
| Mr. Lan is just one in a long line of people waiting to get paid by Chinese property developers. Once the country’s biggest creator of jobs, the housing market also enriched local governments and created a store of household wealth. But a move by regulators to deflate a property bubble and China’s slowing economy have accelerated a crisis that is spreading to all corners of life. |
| 兰明强只是众多等待中国房地产开发商付款者中的一员。房地产市场曾经是全国最大的就业机会创造者，让地方政府富裕起来，并创造了家庭财富。但监管机构为挤压房地产泡沫而采取的举措，以及中国经济放缓加速了它的危机，并且正蔓延至生活的各个角落。 |
| Small businesses and workers who thrived on the decades-long property boom are no longer getting paid. Low on the payback priority list for developers but an important part of the housing ecosystem, the group includes painters, cement makers and builders, as well as real estate agents and companies that furnished sales offices. |
| 在长达数十年的房地产繁荣中蓬勃发展的小企业和工人现在收不到酬劳。这个群体包括油漆工、水泥生产商和建筑商，以及房地产经纪人和售楼处的装修公司，它们在房地产开发商的优先回款名单上排名靠后，却是房地产生态系统的重要组成部分。 |
| As a group, suppliers are waiting on at least $390 billion in payments, according to the research firm Gavekal Research. And that’s a conservative estimate; the number is probably larger. |
| 研究公司龙洲经讯的数据显示，作为一个整体，供应商有至少3900亿美元的货款等待支付。这还只是保守估计，实际数字可能更大。 |
| People want their money and are taking action. Lawsuits and complaints to local authorities are piling up. Construction workers are posting protest banners at empty construction sites that have been chained and locked. “It’s shameful to delay wages,” one sign says. “Country Garden, pay back my hard-earned money,” reads another. |
| 人们想要回酬劳，并且正在采取行动。向当地政府提出的诉讼和投诉越来越多。建筑工人在被锁住的空置建筑工地张贴抗议标语。“拖欠工资可耻”，一个标语写道。另一条写道：“碧桂园，还我血汗钱”。 |
| Liu Yaonan, a real estate agent in Guangdong Province, doesn’t have much confidence that Country Garden will ever pay. He has received only three-quarters of his usual commission for the last year and says he is still owed nearly $8,000. |
| 刘耀南（音）是广东的一名房地产经纪人，他不太相信碧桂园会支付报酬。去年他只收到了平时佣金的四分之三，他说还被拖欠了近5.6万元。 |
| He said he has called Country Garden’s complaint hotline over and over, he said, but the person who answers takes no action other than noting his grievance. |
| 他说，他一遍又一遍地给碧桂园的投诉热线打电话，但接电话的人除了记下投诉之外，没有采取任何行动。 |
| “It is unfair for real estate agencies, because once a developer goes through a debt crisis, the system first protects the buyers,” Mr. Liu said. “Other material dealers, agents and engineers basically cannot get paid.” |
| “对于房地产中介来讲，也是不合理的，因为一旦一个开发商暴雷，它首先保护的是购买者，”刘耀南说道。“其他的材料商、代理销售商、工程方，基本拿不到钱。” |
| The flurry of activity is adding to the strain on China’s economy when confidence is already low. Years of lockdowns and other Covid prevention measures have weighed on consumers, who are spending less. Companies have pulled back on hiring. Fewer and fewer people are buying homes. |
| 在信心已经很低迷的情况下，这一连串的活动给中国经济增加了压力。几年来的封锁和其他预防措施给消费者带来压力，他们减少了支出。公司减少了招聘。买房的人越来越少。 |
| More than any other company, Country Garden and its sudden reversal of fortunes illustrates the severity of this economic strain. Just a year ago it was China’s biggest real estate firm by sales, and one of the few private companies that suppliers and lenders could depend on to pay the bills. |
| 碧桂园及其命运的突然逆转比其他任何公司都更能说明这种经济压力的严重性。就在一年前，它还是中国销售额最大的房地产公司，也是供应商和贷款人可以依靠的少数几家民营公司之一。 |
| But a drop in sales over the past six months has pushed it to the edge, and in August it threw up its hands. |
| 但过去六个月的销售下滑把它推到边缘，到了8月，它放弃了。 |
| Country Garden skipped two small interest payments on bonds, something that has pushed it to the edge of default. If it fails to make those payments by early September, when a grace period ends, it will join a long list of private companies that have defaulted. It also disclosed that it might have lost as much as $7.6 billion over the first six months of the year. |
| 碧桂园拖欠了两笔小额债券利息，这把它推到了违约的边缘。如果它不能在9月初宽限期结束前支付这些款项，它将加入一长串违约的民营公司名单。该公司还透露，今年前六个月的亏损可能高达550亿元。 |
| Country Garden’s swing from success to near failure is deepening fears that an abrupt end is in sight for China’s developers, many of which have been under stress for several years as regulators have tried to restrict their bank financing. |
| 碧桂园从成功到濒临破产的转变，加剧了人们对中国房地产开发商即将突然覆灭的担忧。由于监管机构试图限制它们的银行融资，许多开发商多年来一直处于压力之下。 |
| At first, some developers were able to keep going, even as they failed to make good on their obligations. They found other ways to compensate suppliers. China Evergrande, the behemoth that defaulted on hundreds of billions of dollars of debt in 2021, repaid some of its suppliers with unfinished apartments instead of cash, on the theory the suppliers could sell them to reclaim the money they were owed. |
| 起初，部分开发商哪怕未能做到按时偿付，也还能维持运营。他们找到了其他补偿供应商的办法。地产巨头中国恒大就用未完工的公寓而不是现金来偿还部分供应商，按照其说法，供应商可以通过出售这些公寓收回欠款。该集团在2021年出现数千亿美元的债务违约。 |
| These days, even bartering is no longer an option. |
| 现如今，以房抵债的办法也行不通了。 |
| “Such apartments have run out; we can’t get them,” said Han Tao, a manager at a landscaping company that is owed $1.4 million from property developers. For Mr. Han, apartments wouldn’t have been that useful anyway; no one is buying them right now. |
| “房子抵完了，我们都拿不到，”一家园林绿化公司的经理韩涛（音）表示，开发商还欠该公司140万美元。对韩涛来说，拿到公寓也没多大用处，现在根本没人买。 |
| After years of building a thriving business providing cherry trees and acacias for big property projects, he and his colleagues are setting more modest goals. One change: They will accept a job only if cash is paid upfront. |
| 多年来，他和他的同事都在为大型房地产项目供应樱桃树和相思树，生意蒸蒸日上，如今他们的眼光正在变得保守。一个改变是：他们只做有预付款的项目了。 |
| “We keep our business small,” he said. |
| “生意做小一点，不要搞那么大，”他说。 |
| On China’s social media platform Weibo, construction workers complain about missed paychecks. Some post pictures of court documents from lawsuits. Others show records of the complaints they have lodged with local authorities. Many express a sense of despair and frustration. |
| 在中国的社交媒体平台微博上，有建筑工人在抱怨拖欠工资。一些人上传了诉讼中的法庭文件照片。还有一些人则展示了他们向当地政府投诉的记录。许多人都表达了绝望和沮丧的心情。 |
| Liao Hongmei spent years in a legal battle to try to get $690,000 from China Evergrande. She even won. But Evergrande still hasn’t paid her, and, in her view, businesses the size of hers will probably never get the money they are owed. |
| 打了好几年官司的廖红梅（音）试图从中国恒大拿回约490万元款项。她甚至还胜诉了。但恒大仍未还钱，在她看来，像她这种规模的企业可能永远也拿不回欠款了。 |
| “We small suppliers don’t have a say,” said Ms. Liao, who built a successful company a decade ago providing marketing and decoration services to Evergrande for its sales offices in the province of Jiangsu. |
| “我们最终端的供应商，没有话语权，”廖红梅说。她十年前创办的公司通过为恒大在江苏的售楼处提供营销及装修服务而飞黄腾达。 |
| Flashy sales offices have long played a key role in bringing in cash that property developers needed to keep growing. Most companies sold apartments before a project was finished, with customers paying upfront. |
| 长久以来，豪华的售楼处为房地产开发商带来保持增长所需的现金方面发挥着关键作用。大多数开发商都是出售期房，让客户提前付款。 |
| Inside the sales offices, agents dressed in suits typically pitch potential buyers on the bells and whistles. A miniature model of the residential complex gives a sense of what the complex will look like when it is built. A tour of a model apartment, often decorated lavishly, sells them on a lifestyle. |
| 售楼处里西装革履的销售通常会对潜在买家说得天花乱坠。模型展示了小区建成后的样子。参观通常装饰奢华的样板房则是在向客户推销一种生活方式。 |
| According to Ms. Liao, sometime around 2016, Evergrande began to issue i.o.u.s — known in dry financial parlance as commercial acceptance bills — for payment within six months. Then, in 2017, it started to give one-year i.o.u.s. The time it took Ms. Liao to get paid got longer and longer. But the money still came in, she said, until the company defaulted on its debt in 2021. |
| 据廖红梅透露，在2016年左右，恒大开始给六个月内到期的债务打欠条（书面金融术语为商业承兑汇票）。然后在2017年，恒大开始给一年期欠款打欠条。廖红梅收回款项的时间越来越长。但她说，直到恒大2021年出现债务违约之前，她还能收到钱。 |
| Now Ms. Liao’s business is on the brink of bankruptcy. She sued Evergrande and won, but has no way to get her money because the government is supervising the restructuring of the company, and its first priority has been to make sure Evergrande finishes the apartments it sold. Last year, it said it had finished 300,000 and still had 720,000 more to complete, according to its 2022 results. |
| 现在，廖红梅的生意已经濒临倒闭，她起诉恒大并胜诉，但仍拿不回钱，因为政府正在监督恒大重组，保恒大交房才是首要目标。该公司表示，根据2022年的业绩，该公司在去年已经交房30万套，还有72万套尚未交付。 |
| On Aug. 17, Evergrande filed for bankruptcy protection and has signaled that it is close to a deal with some of its biggest creditors. Trading in its shares resumed in Hong Kong on Monday, after a 17-month suspension. The stock plunged 79 percent. |
| 8月17日，恒大申请破产保护，并宣称即将与部分最大的债权人达成协议。在停牌17个月后，恒大股票周一在香港复牌，其股价暴跌79%。 |
| But for small-business owners like Ms. Liao, who is at the very back of the long line of banks, creditors and companies seeking money, there isn’t much hope. Many of her peers who have filed similar lawsuits have given up, she said. Ms. Liao said she hoped that once Evergrande finished the apartments it owed home buyers, there would still be something left for people like herself. |
| 有银行、债权人和寻求资金的公司在前，廖红梅这样的小企业主无足轻重，拿回款项的希望十分渺茫。她说，许多提起类似诉讼的同行都放弃了。廖红梅表示，她希望恒大向购房者完成交付之后，还能有多余的房子留给向她这样的人。 |
| “A little money,” Ms. Liao said, is her only request. “But it doesn’t seem like that is going to happen.” |
| “我们能不能分到一点钱，”廖红梅说，这是她唯一的要求。“但是好像这个都实不现。” |
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