At an upmarket housing growth in Wuhan, gross sales brokers wish to clarify that their state-owned agency has severed all its ties to the non-public sector. The agency had at first partnered with Sunac, a personal developer, till it defaulted in 2022. A saleswoman explains that the agency’s proprietor additionally controls town’s waterworks and electrical energy supplier. If one of these agency collapses, she says with a smile, “then the entire nation has no hope”.