China's mountain of maturing debt puts a fear that nobody's talking about

Average defaulted bond of China is now almost 1 billion yuan ($156 million), twice the size three years ago

For all the talk of China’s mountain of debt, defaults and deleveraging, there’s a chasm nobody is talking about.

Here’s an alarming and frequently cited statistic: Chinese industrial companies have at least $124 billion of debt maturing over the next two years. Actually, it’s worse. They have another $34 billion of bonds with put options – giving creditors the right to sell back their securities or get a higher coupon – that can be exercised within the next two years. Lenders could be asking for their money back much sooner than companies and investors expect.

Whether bondholders cash in is anyone’s guess.