China Evergrande Group edges closer to a massive restructuring, Beijing has stepped up efforts to limit the fallout, signaling it’s willing to prop up healthy developers, homeowners and the real estate market at the expense of global bondholders.

In the last week alone, Chinese authorities have dispatched top financial regulators to nudge the country’s massive banks to ease credit for homebuyers and support the property sector. They also bought out part of Evergrande’s stake in a struggling bank to limit contagion. The central bank meanwhile has pumped $123 billion into the financial system over 10 days to ease liquidity.

The moves underscore that China will do everything it can to ring-fence Evergrande, while showing little interest in a direct bailout of the developer that has roiled global markets for weeks. That doesn’t bode well for bondholders – both onshore and abroad – looking for some kind of rescue from the Chinese government.

“The first obligation is going to make sure that homeowners who bought those homes take delivery and are made whole,” said Marathon Asset Management chief executive Bruce Richards, who started buying Evergrande debt last week.

“At the very end of the pecking order are offshore bondholders.”

For China, the risk of contagion far outweighs any potential damage from an Evergrande collapse on its own. Though Evergrande is one of the largest developers in China, it accounts for just 4 per cent of sales in the country. A run on property firms in the wake of an Evergrande failure threatens to destabilise an industry that accounts for 29 per cent of China’s economy, according to new research from Harvard University economist Ken Rogoff.

Already, developers such as Sunac China Holdings and Guangzhou R&F Properties have plunged in trading, while their bond yields have soared. Some 12 real estate companies have reported bond defaults in the first half of this year, amounting to 19bn yuan, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

Trading of Evergrande shares was suspended Monday in Hong Kong, along with those of its property management unit. No reason was given for the halts, according to a stock exchange filing. China’s markets are closed Monday for a holiday.

China also faces a potential backlash from the 1.6 million homebuyers who put deposits on Evergrande apartments that have yet to be built. Getting those projects completed would help avert the type of social unrest sparked last month by retail investors demanding payment on some 40 billion yuan in Evergrande high-yield investment products.

“A disorderly default of Evergrande is unlikely because of the broad-based risk it presents to a large amount of the Chinese population,” said Alejandra Grindal, chief economist at Ned Davis Research Inc. “The government is probably less concerned about restructuring the offshore debt.”

Homebuyers already face the threat of declining prices after years of gains. Measures of price growth, housing starts and sales have moderated significantly in recent months, Moody’s notes in a report.

Given the heightened risk of social unrest, Beijing will try to ensure that construction workers are paid first in any restructuring, followed by homebuyers, then suppliers and lenders, said James Feng, the founding partner of Poseidon Capital Group, a Chinese fund that specialises in distressed and special situation investments.

“It’s highly likely that Evergrande’s offshore bondholders will be wiped out,” he said.