So maybe George Soros was on to something after all. On Monday the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist party’s flagship newspaper, published a front-page interview with an “authoritative figure” who warned that the country’s soaring debt levels could lead to “systemic financial risks”.

The last time the People’s Daily made such a splash was in January, when its overseas edition took Mr Soros to task for allegedly shorting the renminbi. As it happened, Mr Soros did not mention the renminbi but said he was bearish on Asian currencies and worried about deflation and debt in China. More recently, the “man who broke the Bank of England” said China was at the top of a debt precipice comparable to the one the US fell off a decade ago.

The “authoritative figure” interviewed by the People’s Daily was even more quotable than Mr Soros on China’s dangerous debt level, at 237 per cent of gross domestic product and climbing. “A tree cannot reach the sky,” the figure said. “Any mishandling [of the situation] will lead to systemic financial risks, negative economic growth and evaporate people’s savings. That’s deadly.”