In terms of geopolitical optics, this week was nothing short of a banquet. It served up at least two sets of images that seem to crystallize our historical moment and that will live on in the Wikipedia of history as shorthand for where the world was in 2025.
One is the waves of uncannily synchronized soldiers and a bewildering array of high-tech weaponry gliding down Beijing’s Chang’an Avenue. The ...
Category: Finance
China’s Lending to the Global South Has Been Growing More Commercial
By Yunnan Chen Development finance has been embattled of late. Aid cutbacks have raised alarm over financing for climate and development goals. The most notable example is the egregious dismantling of the US Agency for ...
How China Really Secures Its Loans to Developing Countries
The "debt trap" meme claims that China is intentionally lending vast sums of money to poor developing countries in Africa, and elsewhere, with the express intent to seize physical assets in those countries when they inevitably can't repay their debts.
Eyes Turn to China as the West Steps Back From Development
By Tim Hirschel-Burns With the notable exception of the United States, all other 192 members of the United Nations agreed on an agenda for financing the United Nations' 2030 Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs). In important respects, the agreement on the
A Peer-to-Peer Pivot in China’s Overseas Development Finance
By Rebecca Ray In 2024, China extended $6.1 billion in 20 commitments in public and publicly guaranteed (PPG) loans, according to a new update to the China’s Overseas Development Finance (CODF) Database managed by the Boston University Global Development Policy ...
It’s Payback Time For a Lot of Those Chinese Loans
Borrowers in Africa and other developing regions are expected to repay $35 billion of Chinese loans this year, with two-thirds of the amount coming from the world's poorest countries. Many of these debts were taken out in the mid-2010s and are ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Appoints “Tiger-Fighter’ as New Leader
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has appointed a new leader. Zou Jiayi, a former Vice Finance Minister and anti-corruption official, was elected as the new leader of the development bank, which functions as a China-centric version of the World Bank. She replaces Jin Liqun, the founding ...
China Floats Ideas for “Multipolar” Currency System to Balance U.S. Dollar
China announced several new initiatives aimed at increasing global trade in the yuan and to hedge against the dominance of the U.S. dollar. Pan Gongsheng, the governor of the People’s Bank of China, proposed a future where the global financial system would rely on several currencies.
Kenya’s FM Pushes China for Fast Approval of Financial Assistance Package
Kenya's top diplomat, Musalia Mudavadi, hoped that his visit to China this week would prompt Beijing to speed up approval of a large financial package that his government is counting on to build new roads and extend the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) to the Ugandan border.
After Trump Cut Funding for Energy Transitions Overseas, Could China Step In?
By Zhou Xiaozhu On the day he became president again, Donald Trump signed an executive order to take the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. That was followed by a termination of U.S. funding pledged during the Biden ...
China Says It Could Replace U.S. Funding in Colombia
China could step in to support infrastructure projects in Colombia if the United States withdraws funding, the country’s ambassador, Zhu Jingyang, said. In mid-May, the US Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said it would “strongly oppose” upcoming disbursements by the Inter-American ...
Developing Nations Face ‘Tidal Wave’ of China Debt: Report
The world's poorest nations face a "tidal wave of debt" as repayments to China hit record highs in 2025, an Australian think tank warned Tuesday in a new report. China's Belt and Road Initiative lending spree of the 2010s has paid ...
China’s Global Power Plant Investment is Shifting—But Will the Scale Follow?
By Diego Morro In a recent virtual meeting with world leaders on Climate and the Just Transition, Chinese leader Xi Jinping stated that China will not slow its climate efforts or reduce support for international cooperation. This builds on his ...