Half-built palaces and towers expose rural China's debt risk

Guizhou county saddled with billions in loans after construction spree

20200724 1 Dushan Guizhou AP_20197130588439

A 99-meter building in the style of the Shui people, a local ethnic group, stands unfinished and abandoned in China's Guizhou Province despite investment of 200 million yuan. © AP

NIKKI SUN, Nikkei staff writer

July 29, 2020 15:09 JST

HONG KONG -- A man surnamed Lou, the 42-year-old boss of a travel company in the southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou, never thought his small home county would become famous this way.

The county of Dushan, meaning "single mountain," made headlines this month after a vlog titled "How Dushan Burnt 40 billion" went viral on Chinese social media.