DIVERGENT views are emerging over whether there is a bubble building in the Chinese property sector, which has produced a string of aggressive high-yield issues this year, the most recent of which was Greentown China's conveniently successful US$400 million bond this week.

The recent hot flow of money into Chinese high-yield property bonds, much of it from private banks unable to earn a decent return elsewhere, had the look and feel of a sector overheating, and many have indeed traded down in secondary.

If it looks like a bubble and inflates like a bubble, then it will ultimately pop like a bubble.

Not everyone thinks there is a bubble, however. Moody's certainly does not and has said in a report that the recent spate of bond issuance had actually shored up the sector's liquidity and generally extended many issuers' maturity profiles.