In Courtroom No. 29, a gray, musty cubbyhole of a space wedged into the heart of Hong Kong’s tony banking district, Judge Linda Chan presides over China’s great financial reckoning.

One after the other, the high-powered attorneys and executives of distressed real-estate developers — the behemoths that had once powered the economic boom that made China the envy of the world — come before her to plead for their financial lives: China Evergrande Group, Sunac China Holdings, Jiayuan International Group, Kaisa Group Holdings.