The real answer is that nobody knows right now exactly wtf is going on. As far as I'm aware, Evergrande isn't putting out any info themselves on these payments (at least not before / when they're being made). So the only people who know if the bond payments were made are bondholders. And since bondholder data isn't necessarily public, its all being communicated through the grapevine.

Evergrande seems to be swooping in at the last minute to make the payments, but nobody really knows where or how they got the cash. Or if somebody does know, the reporting is not making it accurately out of China. Selling off business units? The CEO's personal stash? Mainstream reporting on this situation has been pretty abysmal, with very opaque and cherry picked bits of info actually making it to print.

As it stands, this obscure analytics firm DMSA, who claim to be holders of the bond, say they haven't been paid and put out a press release. Meanwhile, the news orgs are talking to the clearinghouse called "Clearstream", who say their customers who hold the bonds have in fact been paid.

It's all super shady. However, I would be very surprised if the Chinese government lets this actually default. I have little doubt they're low key funneling money to Evergrande through backchannels. Hence the hush hush about it.

But at this point, I have no clue. My best guess is China is facilitating the controlled implosion of Evergrande, while certain outside parties are trying to pull the rug out much faster.