The burgeoning debt crisis in a growing number of African countries is increasingly seen by the Chinese government as another front in Beijing’s competition with Western powers like the U.S.
A recent article published earlier this month by the official Xinhua news agency provides crucial insights into how the government is framing the issue. Overall, China is framed as the victim of Western slander and the U.S. and European countries are framed as actually to blame for the continent’s financial woes.