BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE MAP. SILK ROAD BRIEFING.
China issued developing countries over $104B in rescue loans from 2019 through 2021.
Beijing is working to shore up the finances of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the most expensive transnational infrastructure project in history.
The value of Chinese bailout loans issued to developing countries between 2019 and the end of 2021 is as large as the bailout loans issued by China over the previous 20 years, according to a report published on Tuesday by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
- Most of the bailouts went to countries that are struggling to pay back loans issued as part of the BRI.
- China's state-owned banks played a key role in financing BRI projects in developing countries
- The spike in China's bailout lending signals that Beijing is "trying to rescue its own banks," according to Carmen Reinhart, a Harvard Kennedy School professor.
- The American Enterprise Institute estimates the cost of BRI projects and transactions between 2013 and 2021 at about $838B.
