This echoes the view put forward in September by Premier Li Keqiang - the man most responsible for China's economic policy - that debt-fueled spending is at "safe levels" in China.
China's addiction to stimulus became a danger only somewhat recently.
For most of the last three decades, the formula worked: Local governments borrowed money; they spent it building airports, highways, and apartment complexes. The economy grew and they paid back the loans.
Starting in 2008, however, China went on a binge of debt-fueled spending that produced some misguided projects - think Olympic-sized stadiums in third-tier cities. That yielded a wildly increased debt-to-GDP ratio.
From 2005 to 2012, IMF data show, the total volume of debt in China's non-banking sectors soared from 25.8 trillion yuan to 91.6 trillion yuan, or 14.7 trillion dollars.
Debt in China amounted to 182 percent of GDP at the end of 2012, up from 167 percent the year before, according to an analysis of local government data. By comparison, the US debt-to-GDP ratio is now 73 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office, twice the percentage it was in 2007.
As China's economy has started to slow, that lopsided ratio has become more and more of a concern.
"China has the highest investment-to-GDP ratio in the world - a downturn in its investment cycle would not only adversely affect its economy but also those of others, and global commodities prices," Standard & Poor's said in a February report.
Not to mention that debt growth is not confined to the government. Bad loans have also proliferated in the corporate sector.
In August, Rongsheng, a major shipbuilder, asked the government for a bailout to help pay off more than $4 billion in outstanding debt. In the first half of this year, China's big banks had to write off three times the amount of bad loans compared to the year before.
None of this means that China is on the verge of financial collapse, however.
As GlobalPost has previously explained, because Beijing controls the big banks and strictly limits how much cash can be taken out of the country, the system can malfunction without leading to a meltdown like the Lehman Brothers crash.
Under China's Communist system, non-performing loans can stumble on almost indefinitely.
"The money always ends up in some entity controlled by the government," China economic expert Victor Shih told GlobalPost. "This is why it's been very sustainable."
