My brother in law built up a large amount of gambling debt two years ago. I guess in an attempt to save face, he hid a portion - 75,000¥ ($11,187) from his family thinking he could pay it off himself. Unfortunately, his wife asked him to deposit his checks straight into her bank account so he had no income to pay this secret debt off. He persisted unfortunately, and resorted to shuffling money across credit cards and getting loans to pay loans.
Now his debt has ballooned to 300,000¥ ($44,748) across many loans and credit cards. He makes 5,000¥ ($745) a month and apparently his lenders are asking for a combined 15,000¥ ($2,237) a month with some looming balloon payment in August.
His immediate family is being less than helpful. They are suggesting he get a second job, but apparently factory workers get only 1 day off a month, so he can't get a weekend job. They were suggesting Uber, but my understanding was that some people can actually lose money on Uber, and I'm not confident in his ability to properly track his finances for something like that. Even then a couple hours of Uber a day doesn't really begin to fix the problem.
I'd suggest he file for bankruptcy but it appears that no such thing exists in China. Actually, it appears from my cursory googling there are no laws to help debtors at all.
His main asset is a low-end car. No home.
I imagine the first step in this is to talk to the lenders, but I'm not sure what that conversation should look like - especially in China. Is it possible to consolidate his loans into a lower interest loan, perhaps with his car as collateral?