Even by China’s standards, Wuhan Iron & Steel is enormous. As we drive along the four-lane highway beside the 22 square-kilometre site – with its eight blast furnaces, hot and cold rolling mills, port on the Yangtze River and Red Steel City workers’ town where 300,000 people live – the scale of Mao Zedong’s favourite steelworks is staggering.

It has its own Guggenheim-like museum, displaying photographs of every Chinese leader, from Mao through Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping, the president, and Li Keqiang, the premier, visiting the plant. It dominates the Qingshan district of Wuhan, a rapidly expanding city of 10m in Hubei province that is building a 12-line subway system – and eight satellite cities – to cope.

But Wuhan Iron & Steel Company is a big problem. Measured by output, Wisco is in the best of health. It is the fastest-growing of China’s top-five steel producers, having gobbled up three provincial competitors and thrust into Guangxi province. It almost doubled its output in five years, becoming the world’s sixth-largest steel group by tonnage, as China’s behemoths have dwarfed the US and European competition.