On one hand, over the past few years, taking advantage of a relatively cheap and stable dollar, China's semi-SOEs corporations gorged themselves on dollar borrowings, blowing out their balance sheets but not in yuan but rather in greenbacks. On the other hand, the dollar has surged in 2018 as the yuan has tumbled at a pace not seen since the 2015 devaluation, leaving USD-exposed borrowers scrambling to rollover existing debt.

So faced with the threat of another surge in defaults among USD-borrowers, Bloomberg reports that China is slowing approvals for offshore bonds and is even considering whether to ban outright short-dated issuance in dollars, moves that would reduce financing options for the debt-laden developers that sit at the center of the nation's economy.

The National Development & Reform Commission is weighing a ban on the sale of dollar bonds with tenors of less than one year, said the people, who asked not to be named because they're not authorized to speak publicly. The regulator is already restricting offshore issuance quotas for Chinese companies, people said.