The last paragraph in the OP article is really something:

The most crucial difference between China’s balance-sheet recession and Japan’s may be emotional. Throughout Japan’s recovery, markets worked from a cooperative ideological mindset, believing free trade was good. As China begins its recovery, that cooperation has turned adversarial. Ultimately, that may mean the difference between China continuing its rise or staying stuck in a debt trap. In the end, technology may not save China if it doesn’t have the right friends to buy it all.

Yes, it is the free market that is cooperative and state planning that is adversarial. Makes perfect sense.