China finds itself in a situation analogous to America pre-Lehman: comically over-indebted property speculators facing a cash crunch. In both cases, short-term financing is the straw breaking the camel's back. In America, banks refused to "extend and pretend," i.e. continue financing a bad debt. Ceteris paribus, this is good. But when banks realized everyone else would do this, they panicked (who, among their peers, was over-exposed to Lehman?), and refused to extend credit to each other or, for that matter, anyone else. This sparked a systemic credit crisis.
China, on the other hand, is a command economy. It owns the banks. If Evergrande collapses, it can order its banks to continue financing other competitors. Not only do the banks know this, everyone externally knows it. The end result will thus be the same: deleveraging in the property sector. But the violence of it is different.
Keep in mind, too, that the proximate cause of this crisis was Beijing putting leverage limits on developers like Evergrande. Evergrande didn't stop borrowing because nobody would lend to them. It stopped because Beijing said it couldn't.
It's best not to have a leverage problem. But once you have one, this seems like a decent way to exit. Property buyers and small-time depositors look likely to get their money back. Executives and foreign investors will get hosed; the former, perhaps worse.