another moment of hubris?

I get wary whenever i hear "the largest in history", and words of its ilk. This latest public offering from the Chinese government seems to be in keeping with its sentiment of taking money off gullible investors / sovereign wealth funds. The below snippets do not portend a good omen. This may well be a case of 'caveat emptor'.

In 1998, the Beijing government spent 270 billion renminbi, then worth about $33 billion, to recapitalize the nation’s four big banks. It then bought up 346 billion renminbi ($50.9 billion) in worthless loans from the Agricultural Bank.

The bailout did not take. In 2006, auditors said they had found fraudulent deals at the Agricultural Bank totaling 60.3 billion renminbi ($7.5 billion). In 2008, with nonperforming loans composing almost a quarter of the bank’s assets, the government pumped $19 billion more into Agricultural Bank, then assumed another 800 billion renminbi ($120 billion) in bad loans.


However, here's a more balanced viewpoint.