China’s companies racked up some towering bills as they expanded, and the world’s investors and lenders rushed to offer them even more money. Now the bills are coming due, and a growing number of Chinese companies can’t pay up, in a sign that the world’s No. 2 economy is feeling the stress from its worst slowdown in nearly three decades. Two high-profile companies — a giant government-run trading firm and a conglomerate backed by China’s most distinguished university — are the latest to join a long list of Chinese businesses that have run short of cash when it was time to pay back their debts. Chinese corporate borrowers have defaulted on nearly $20 billion in loans this year. The amount is small compared with China’s overall economy, but the toll is rising. Chinese companies owe hundreds of billions of […]