There’s an Interesting Debate Underway Among Scholars Over Whether China is Hiding Its Overseas Lending

A discussion over the extent of China’s “hidden loans” in Africa and other developing regions has been bubbling all spring in Washington’s think tank and scholarly circles. It all started back in late March when the Wall Street Journal published an article featuring data from scholars Sebastian Horn, Carmen Reinhart, and Christoph Trebesch (aka “HRT”) that claimed: “an estimated $200 billion of emerging-market debt owed to China has gone unreported in official statistics in recent years.”

Soon after that WSJ article was published, Professor Deborah Brautigam and her China-Africa Research Initiative Kevin Acker challenged HRT’s conclusions in a detailed blog post.

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by Eric Olander

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