The Chair of the Paris Club of wealthy donor states, Odile Renaud-Basso, is increasingly confident that China will join the broader international effort to provide debt relief to countries facing high levels of economic distress.

In Africa, China has an estimated $150 billion of outstanding loans, approximately 20% of the continent’s entire external debt, and until now, Beijing has been rather quiet as to how it plans to renegotiate the terms of that debt. Chinese officials say they plan to work bilaterally with individual African countries and also with multilateral organizations like the G20.