90% home ownership

From Shades of 2008 - Unprecedented Levels of China's Debt Threaten the Entire Global Economy by Andreas Kern and Cora Jungbluth. I don't disagree that there are good reasons to be concerned about China's potential exposure to debt as well reasons to be concerned if the Chinese do not continue to manage their economy well. The specifics of the causal mechanism remain obscure as do the parameters of the possible consequences.

However, this I did not know:

Driven by an almost uninterrupted property boom, household debt has exploded. China’s home ownership is now among the highest in the world at 89.68 %, rising from almost zero two decades ago. More than half of Chinese family wealth is now held in the form of property, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (SCMP August 6 2017).

90% home ownership? Astounding! In two decades? Inconceivable.

In mature, stable developed economies such as the US, German, Britain, France, etc. home ownership ranges from a low of 51% in Germany to a high of 70% in the Netherlands. In the Anglophone economies it is typically +/- 2% of 66%.

With state financial conditions unknown but suspected of being overexposed, combined with such an extraordinary exposure to property on the consumer side of the equation - those are good reasons to be extra alarmed. For the past thirty years, the Chinese technocrats have done a superb job. Have they just been hiding problems with debt>