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When Djibouti Finance Minister Ilyas Dawaleh tweeted this week about a meeting with Chinese ambassador Hu Bin to discuss the upcoming FOCAC summit, Charmarke Abdoulkader Hadji thought this might be a good way to get the minister's attention and ask for a job.

"Mr. Minister," he wrote in a comment below Dawaleh's tweet," in case you have a need for in-depth knowledge about China, I offer you my services as someone who knows about this country, its cooperation strategy with Africa and Djibouti in particular."

Hadji also mentioned that he spent 13 years in China before deciding to return home.

We don't know yet whether the minister acknowledged the young man's creative offer.

Senegal's Foreign Minister Aïssata Tall Sall will meet with all Dakar-based African ambassadors on Thursday to discuss preparations for the upcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) ministerial conference that, according to the official Agence de Presse Sénégalaise, will take place between Sunday, November 28th and Tuesday, November 30th.

This is the first instance that the dates have been publicly confirmed by a government entity.

Meantime, other preparations for the triennial forum are ramping up. A shipment of 500,000 doses of unspecified COVID-19 vaccines along with a commensurate number of syringes will arrive on Thursday from China, presumably to be used for people attending the conference. Overall, the COVID situation in Senegal has largely stabilized despite relatively low vaccination rates.

And there are new clues emerging about the issues that will top the agenda. The Egyptian news site Dostor reported on Wednesday that "strengthening Afro-Chinese cooperation in an era of global crises" and "exploring new horizons for trade relations between Africa and China" will top the agenda.

Wang Yang, a member of China's powerful Politburo and president of the country's rubber-stamp legislature, held separate meetings with legislative leaders from both sides of the Congo river.

In Beijing, Wang held talks with Edouard Mokolo Wa Mpombo, first vice-president of the Senate of the DR Congo (photo). Also, on the same day, Wang spoke via video conference with Pierre Ngolo, the president of the Senate in the Republic of Congo.

In both instances, China's official news agency Xinhua provided few details other than how Wang hopes to forge closer ties between the legislatures in both countries and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference that he leads.

While few direct measures emerge from these kinds of meetings (in terms of actual policy), they are nonetheless very important as they showcase the kind of knowledge sharing between African and Chinese political stakeholders that Wake Forest University Assistant Professor Lina Benabdallah notes is often unnoticed or underappreciated by most outside observers.

SUGGESTED READING:

• Xinhua: Top Chinese political adviser meets with President of the Senate of the Republic of Congo (in French)
• Xinhua: China's top political adviser meets with guest from Democratic Republic of Congo (in French)

NOTE: This is an update to an earlier story that we showcased this week about a primetime talk show on the national Chinese TV network Dragon TV that featured a discussion among the Foreign Ministry's top diplomat for sub-Saharan Africa, Wu Peng, and well-known Africa scholar, Professor Zhang Weiwei from Fudan University.

Now, the English-language unit at Dragon TV translated a portion of Zhang's opening monologue and published the clip on YouTube.

Too often the Chinese articulation of their strategy in Africa is difficult to comprehend when it's disseminated through tightly controlled state-media channels or government spokespeople who are often more concerned about scoring points against geopolitical rivals than conveying a cogent, easy to understand the vision for what Beijing is trying to achieve in a region like Africa.

Also, the language barrier remains a significant obstacle. The fact is there are still relatively few senior-level Chinese stakeholders who speak English sufficiently well to appear on TV, radio, and podcasts to engage with outsiders and provide a more nuanced, textured understanding of China's position.

Please note that this explanation is by no means meant to excuse China's weak strategic communications capabilities or to justify any of the more controversial aspects of Beijing's foreign policy in Africa. 

Rather, the point here is to note that when the Chinese scholars and officials speak to a domestic audience in their own language, influential stakeholders like Professor Zhang express far more nuanced positions than they otherwise would addressing an international audience in English or French.

So, that's why this clip from Professor Zhang's appearance on Dragon TV earlier this month is notable and critical for outsiders seeking to better understand the philosophy that underpins their engagement strategies in the developing world, not just Africa.

What you'll hear in Professor Zhang's monologue is that China is approaching African countries with an engagement "offer" that is unapologetically different than that of the West. He rejects the West's approach to economic engagement that he claims is hypocritical and lays the blame for much of the continent's instability at the feet of Western efforts to promote democracy.

Instead, he explains that China's hands-off approach that is driven by economic engagement is a more suitable path for African countries and low-income states around the world.

The point here is not to try and persuade you about the merits of his argument but rather to provide an opportunity to more clearly understand the Chinese worldview on these kinds of issues.

The following is a transcript of a portion of Professor Zhang Weiwei's recent monologue on Dragon TV:

I remember an African scholar condemning the West in public. He said that Western should not look down on low-income countries because we have three weapons against you. They are:

1. The Endless influx of refugees
2. Different kinds of infectious diseases
3. And the exacerbation of climate change

These weapons will become more powerful if you continue to show your reluctance to help us.

Surprisingly, his radical remarks were met with applause. Such a reaction indicates that many Africans are now in despair. We need to understand that poverty in today's world exists in concern with other global issues including infectious diseases, refugee crises, and climate change. The only solution to this is to build a community with a shared future for mankind (editor's note: that's a specific reference to Xi Jinping Thought). Otherwise, we are facing a grim outlook.

The West is always proposing that developing countries should follow Western economic principles to promote market liberalization by exerting comparative advantages. However, what many Western countries have done does not fit with that proposal.

They offer huge subsidies to their agriculture sectors. How can African counterparts compete with them against such a backdrop?

Some African friends tell me that the cows in European countries are somehow richer than Africans.

Some Western countries do deliver humanitarian aid to African countries, but often with many political conditions, especially the promotion of democracy. As a result, these African countries get bogged down in regional conflicts and even civil wars.

The people there live a much more difficult life.

According to my fieldwork in Africa, I found that the policies adopted by many African countries often go in opposite extremes. One is completely passing the buck to Western colonialism. The other is simply copying the Western model and accepting any and all suggestions from the West.

Sadly, such policies neither absorb the essence of the Western system nor keep their own advantages.

Perhaps that's why a trend has emerged in many African countries to work with and learn from China in recent years. With the promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative, the trade between China and Africa as well as China's investment in Africa have soared. Many progressive Africans want to learn more about the rise of China.

The number of African leaders attending the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation even surpasses that of those attending the African Union summit.

There is no doubt that the achievements made by China, such as poverty alleviation, moderate prosperity, ecological civilization, and common prosperity, as well as the Chinese philosophy on development, mechanisms, and experiences, have already been shared beyond our borders.

The rise of China is encouraging many African countries, and other countries around the world, to explore their own paths to reach modernization. We sincerely wish for their success.

Watch the full clip of Professor Zhang Weiwei:

Two scholars at the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies (SIIS), one of China's most prestigious and influential foreign policy think tanks, published an uncharacteristically direct appeal for the United States and China to work together to help resolve the worsening debt crisis in developing countries.

Zhou Yuyuan, a prominent Africa scholar at SIIS, and Research Associate Ye Yu outlined a five-point proposal that would require both countries to put aside their increasingly acrimonious feud and make concessions, while at the same time working collaboratively with development finance institutions like the IMF and the World Bank.

Most interestingly, the pair also recommended that the U.S. and China should explore the prospect of actually working together to foster trilateral development in Global South countries. This is consistent with a similar push by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who made a similar suggestion recently in a discussion with French President Emmanuel Macron and earlier with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The October paper was published in English, suggesting that it's likely targeting stakeholders in the United States. But more importantly, the fact that it comes from an institution like SIIS, which carries a lot of weight within policymaking circles, also indicates that there's high-level backing for what appears to be a form of rapprochement between the two sides.

Given the steadily rising suspicion between the U.S. and China, particularly related to the Global South where the U.S. regards China's Belt and Road Initiative as predatory, the emergence of moderate voices like those of Zhou and Yu are indeed rare.

Zhou and Yu's Proposal For How the U.S. & China Can Collaborate on Debt Relief for Developing Countries:

• EACH SIDE NEEDS TO CHANGE ITS WAYS: First and foremost, both sides should prioritize cooperation on sovereign debt treatment and sustainable development. The U.S. should stop scapegoating China for the sovereign debt of developing countries, by hyping the “debt trap” narrative, while China should also address the concerns of the U.S., such as on the issue of debt transparency.

• ALLOCATE MORE MONEY TO RELIEVE THE PRESSURE: Second, the two countries should lead in coordinating macroeconomic policies, controlling global debt risks and mobilizing new resources for alleviating the debt burdens of the debtor countries.

• LEAN ON DEVELOPMENT FINANCE INSTITUTIONS: Third, China and the U.S. should work together in exploring truly multilateral and public-private partnership approaches to deal with the unsustainable debt, on a case-by-case basis, ensuring equitable and fair burden-sharing among all categories of creditors. In particular, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank need to play constructive roles in leveraging all parties’ participation and promoting equitable solutions.

• INVEST IN GREEN FINANCE: Fourth, the two countries should also take the opportunity of debt treatments in fostering green and sustainable development of the debtor countries, while respecting their ownership and development level.

• THE U.S. AND CHINA SHOULD WORK TOGETHER ON DEVELOPMENT ISSUES: Lastly, China and the U.S. should deepen trilateral development cooperation in the developing world through broader policy dialogue in the future.

Read the full paper on the Shanghai Institutes of International Studies website.

U.S. President Joe Biden addressed the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, Scotland on Tuesday. He used some of his time to restate the broad principles guiding his Build Back Better World (B3W) initiative that is ostensibly intended to build infrastructure in developing countries but is also proving quite useful to throw shade at Beijing.

"Being transparent about how we’re financing our projects, we offer positive alternatives to debt — to debt traps and corruption," President Biden said in reference to long-standing accusations by the U.S. that China engages in predatory lending practices. "We can hold entire countries back if we don’t do that. Transparency is critically important," he added.

The President also made reference to the allegation, again largely from U.S. stakeholders, that Beijing is overly assertive in how it finances infrastructure development abroad: "and by insisting and responding to the needs of developing countries rather than dictating projects from afar, we can deliver the greatest impact for those who need it the most."

Other than the broad outlines of B3W offered by President Biden on Tuesday, there's still very little specific information available about B3W and how it will operate.

SUGGESTED READING AND LISTENING:

• The White House: Remarks by President Biden in Meeting on the Build Back Better World Initiative
• Marketplace (audio): Biden, G-7, want to counter China’s financing for developing nations by Sabri Ben-Achour

The chief of the central Nigerian town of Keffi in Nasarawa State awarded a local chieftain title to the Shandong native Cong Hui (丛辉) in appreciation of his contributions to economic development in the community.

Cong works for PowerChina and is reportedly involved in building oil and gas facilities in Nigeria, according to a report on Huafei.

The ceremony took place last month at the palace of the local emir who spoke at the event and explained that the sole purpose for awarding a traditional chief title to a Chinese national is to help foster closer ties between Nigeria and China.

Even though the title is purely ceremonial and affords no authority, the awarding of chief titles to Chinese and other foreigners is often denounced on social media as inappropriate as was the case last year in Ghana.

Read more on the story and view pictures on the Huawei WeChat channel (in Chinese).

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni called on China to further expand duty-free access to its vast market for African products. In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg News, the president acknowledged that China does already provide some tax-free privileges to African products, but now he'd like to see an across-the-board removal of all tariffs.

The timing of the president's appeal is critical, coming just weeks before African and Chinese ministers will convene in Dakar for the eighth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation conference where enhanced access to the Chinese market is widely expected to be high on the agenda.

Uganda, like most African countries, maintains a huge trade imbalance with China. Last year, Uganda exported just $39.6 million worth of goods to China but imported $1.35 billion, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade. So, granting wider market access, even if not 100% duty-free, would no doubt help to narrow that divide.

Key Highlights From President Museveni's Interview on Duty-Free Access to the Chinese Market:

• DUTY-FREE ACCESS: "The only new thing now I should insist on is the issue of market access. For me, what I would ask from them to allow our products to enter their market quota-free, tax-free."

• EXPAND ON CURRENT DUTY-FREE ACCESS:  "They allowed a few but many are not allowed. We would like, a broader spectrum of access to the market without tax and without quantitative limit."

Read more on President Museveni's comments and watch a video of his remarks on the Bloomberg website.

For much of the past 20 years, China has been the indispensable actor in African infrastructure development, financing the construction of thousands of kilometers of new railways and roads along with ports, airports, and power stations.

But has it been enough to help some African countries transition from relying primarily on resource extraction to developing a manufacturing sector and eventually building a services sector in their economies?

Two scholars, Justin Lin from Peking University and Yan Wang from Boston University's Global Development Policy Center examine China's contribution to African "structural transformation" and whether the billions spent on infrastructure have contributed to easing the various bottlenecks that impede economic development in many African countries.

The pair sifted through 3,128 completed projects listed in AidData's Global Chinese Development Finance Dataset, Version 2.0 (September 2021) and concluded that in most instances (78%) Chinese infrastructure projects did positively impact the recipient country's structural transformation.

This relatively high success rate may be attributable to the fact that it's the borrowing country in Africa that selects the projects to be developed and, as such, is acutely aware of its own infrastructure development needs.

But Wang and Lin also noted that "China and African countries must re-think their ways of cooperation" in the post-pandemic era, specifically related to debt restructuring and more Chinese transparency in its dealings with governments on the continent.

Key Findings From Wang and Lin's Research on Chinese Contributions to Structural Transformation in Africa:

• DID CHINESE-FINANCED INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS ADDRESS AFRICA'S MANUFACTURING BOTTLENECKS?: "We found that 78% of the completed projects in hard infrastructure sectors matched with Africa’s bottlenecks in location and sector. In terms of soft infrastructure, 74% of the projects matched with Africa’s bottlenecks."

• BUT SOME ALSO MISSED THE MARK: "Of the completed projects, 22% to 26% have targeting issues, meaning that the projects may not have addressed the host country’s greatest needs."

SUGGESTED READING AND VIEWING:

• Boston University Global Development Policy Center: Africa and China: Development Cooperation for Structural Transformation by Yan Wang
• Boston University Global Development Policy Center: Watch a webinar with Yan Wang where she discusses her research on structural transformation

Huawei's CEO for North Africa, Terry He (photo), struck a defiant tone in a recent interview with the French newsweekly Le Point about the challenges the telecom giant is facing from the United States and its business prospects in Africa amid the ongoing pandemic:

Huawei has not slowed down the development of any of its projects in Africa. The inauguration in June 2021 of the data center in Senegal is a fine illustration. Our activities are all predicated on the digital boom generated by the pandemic, which has increased the needs of both public and private customers for internet access and digital infrastructure.

Even though Huawei's mobile phone sales have cratered in Africa since the company was blocked by the U.S. government from using Google's Android operating system, He said that he's nonetheless confident that African consumers will take to the company's alternative HarmonyOS. "It is important to point out that we did not build another Linux, Android or iOS: we are developing the next generation operating system for the future," he said.

Given the fact that there are still no HarmonyOS phones available for sale in Africa yet (only watches and tablets are in stores), it's still too early to determine if He's optimism is warranted.

Read the full interview on the Le Point website (in French)

China's ambassador to the DR Congo, Zhu Jing, reacted angrily on Monday to a video circulating on Congolese Twitter that purportedly shows a Sicomines worker exhuming the corpse of one of his colleagues (NSFW).

The video was posted over the weekend and claims that a Congolese employee of Sicomines was killed on the job and that "the Chinese leadership decided to bury him without the approval of his family." The tweet's caption added that the victim's Congolese "colleagues alerted the authorities who then exhumed the body."

Sicomines responded immediately with a strongly worded statement that denied any involvement in these "criminal activities." The statement also expressed frustration with the seemingly endless stream of controversial videos about the company that circulates online. "After the umpteenth post on social media with messages, photos, and videos that all lack any evidence, now another one is going around about Sicomines."

The ambassador followed up on Twitter when he condemned the "defamation and demonization of the Chinese community and businesses."

It's important to note that the video does not provide any indication as to where it was shot, when it was recorded, or if the alleged victim died as a result of a workplace accident at Sicomines. At this point, there's just no way to know with certainty the precise circumstances of this video based on the available evidence.

Shipments of COVID-19 vaccines from China to various African countries is now closing in on 100 million doses delivered. But overall the number of jabs committed to the continent is a small fraction of distributions to other regions.

With 86.6 million doses shipped to Africa, according to the latest data from Bridge Consulting's Vaccine Tracker Report, the continent accounts for just 8% of total deliveries compared to 63% for the Asia-Pacific region and 24% sent to Latin America.

Read more on Chinese vaccine deliveries on the Bridge Consulting website.

Two of China's leading authorities on Sino-African relations appeared in a nationally-broadcast hour-long show to discuss the current state of Chinese engagement in Africa and to answer questions from a studio audience. The Chinese Foreign Ministry's top diplomat for sub-Saharan Africa, Wu Peng, and Fudan University Professor Zhang Weiwei appeared last Monday on the talk show "This is China/这就是中国" to introduce the broad themes surrounding Chinese engagement in Africa to a mass audience that is largely unfamiliar with the topic.

The show highlights the heightened interest in Africa in the lead-up to the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation conference that will be held soon in Dakar.

The program opened with both Zhang and Wu delivering monologues to introduce themselves and their respective long personal histories in African affairs and then they sat down with a host for a moderated discussion that also included questions from a studio audience.

A lot of the discussion centered on China's long history in Africa, especially during the anti-colonial period, and how those deep ties with the continent, in their view, serve as the basis for the current relationship. The pair also wasn't shy about addressing more sensitive issues related to the accusation that China engages in predatory lending, China as a neo-colonial power in Africa, and some of the difficulties that China has with its labor-management practices on the continent.

Key Highlights From Wu Peng and Zhang Weiwei's Recent Appearance on Dragon TV:

DIRECTOR-GENERAL WU PENG: Speaking of debt traps, it has been very popular for a while. One of the basic assumptions or discourses for this theory is that China deliberately provides large amounts of loans to Africa, and controls their physical assets when African countries can’t afford them. This is its basic logic. I was interviewed by the BBC when I was an ambassador in Kenya. The reporter raised this question. I told him, as the Chinese ambassador, I can tell you responsibly that even if there is a default in Kenya's infrastructure loans, the Chinese government will not forcefully expropriate or control any Kenyan physical assets. It's true we now need to strictly check the feasibility of the economy and properly control its scale. This is the requirement of African countries. Then we will do this, and we will do it following economic laws.

说到债务陷阱确实曾经有一段时间非常的流行，他的一个基本的假设或者是话语认为中国故意大量的向非洲提供贷款，当他们还不起的时候来控制他们的实物资产，这是它的一个基本逻辑。 有一次我在肯尼亚做大使的时候接受BBC的采访，他的记者就给我抛出这个问题，我跟他这么讲，我说你既然要听我讲，我作为中国大使，我可以负责任的告诉你，即使在肯尼亚的基础设施的贷款出现了违约，中国政府也不会强迫的去征收或者控制任何肯尼亚的实物资产。 确实我们现在需要在经济的可行性上要更好的把关，在它的规模上要适当的控制，这个是非洲国家也有他切身的要求，好我们就这么做，我们就按照经济规律去办这件事。

PROFESSOR ZHANG WEIWEI: Generally speaking, the relationship between African governments and the Chinese government is very good. Ordinary people also generally have a very good impression of Chinese and Chinese investment in China. What is the problem then? It is the African NGOs, many of which are cultivated by the West. They always try to find China's fault. Then there is another problem about the West. Because many African media agencies don't have their editorial or resources. It uses news sources from the mainstream Western media, which leads to criticism of China. This kind of stigmatization has a market in Africa. When you do a lot of things but are not recognized, it could cause frustration. This is why President Xi is promoting telling the Chinese story at a strategic level. We not only need to do it but also need to tell the story well. This can gradually help us break the Western encirclement and suppression.

我觉得还应该处于一个问题，总体上非洲国家政府与中国政府的关系大部分都非常好，然后总体上普通老百姓对中国投资对中国印象总体也是相当不错的，往往出问题在哪一块？
就是非洲的非政府组织，其中很多是西方培养的，他就是给你挑刺儿的。
然后西方还有一个什么问题，它就是一整套的文化，因为非洲国家很多它的媒体它至于种种原因，它没有自己的采编或者力量，用的是西方的主流媒体的新闻来源，导致对中国的很多污名化，在非洲也有市场，所以有时候你做了很多事情，结果就发觉没有得到很好的承认，就有一种挫折感，有时候真是这样的，所以我就觉得为什么现在包括习总书记把讲好中国故事提到一个战略的层面来进行推动，不光要做还要讲好，我觉得这样可以逐步的抵消西方的围剿。

SUGGESTED READING AND VIEWING:

• Observer (观察者): Read a full transcript of the discussion (in Chinese but understandable with Google Translate)
• Dragon TV: Watch the full program on YouTube (Chinese only)

DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi met one-on-one with his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, on Friday in the run-up to the G20 summit that took place over the weekend in Rome. 

There's been a lot of interest in recent months about the U.S. role in President Tshisekedi's effort to review foreign mining contracts with a particular focus on China Moly's TFM copper and cobalt mine and the 2007 Sino-Congolese joint venture Sicomines.

While the White House readout of the meeting made no specific reference to that review process, or the Chinese specifically, there was a vague reference to how "President Biden welcomes President Tshisekedi's efforts to promote transparency, tackle corruption, and respect human rights in how the DRC manages its vast natural resources."

Read the full official readout of the meeting on the White House website.

Other China-DRC Headlines:

• LOGGING: The DRC's environment minister Eve Bazaiba said last week the country intends to ban all log exports and implement other measures to lessen threats to its carbon-absorbing tropical rainforest, a major bulwark against climate change. This decision, if fully implemented, will have a significant impact on Chinese timber companies that have been active in the Congo Basin for years. (REUTERS)

• MINING: Two of the six Chinese mining companies ordered to halt operations in the eastern province of South Kivu last August are apparently still working, according to a local NGO. Governor Théo Gwabidge ordered them to shut down because of environmental and labor violations and China's top diplomat for sub-Saharan Africa, Wu Peng, said on Twitter those involved would face punishment in China. (MEDIA CONGO.NET -- in French)

Anticipation is growing about the upcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation conference that is expected to take place at the end of the month in Dakar. While we still don't know what will be on the agenda, the official meeting of ministers is only a part of the event and not always the most important.

As is customary in the run-up to FOCAC, there are numerous events that are convened in advance, some organized by the Chinese government, and many others by various civil society stakeholders. 

Wake Forest University Assistant Professor Lina Benabdallah, who also authored a seminal book on China-Africa knowledge sharing, noted how a recent dinner event in Beijing organized by Development Reimagined highlights the trend of informal gatherings that foster closer ties among stakeholders on all sides of the China-Africa issue and may feature "some of the most important conversations."

The Sino-Congolese mining company Sicomines, which has been under intense scrutiny for the past several months over its 2007 contract with the government, is now communicating with a sense of confidence that gives the impression its troubles with the authorities in Kinshasa may be over.

This is partially attributable to an aggressive PR campaign by Chinese mining companies in the DRC that by most measures has been very effective in shifting the narrative. Kinshasa's rival political camps are also now focusing more attention on the launch of next year's presidential campaign and it's clear that few people see much benefit in prolonging tensions with some of the country's largest foreign investors.

Of course, nothing is ever certain in the DR Congo, but at least for now, Sicomines' fortunes seem to have improved considerably.

AidData's landmark research report published last month, "Banking on the Belt and Road," generated tremendous media coverage around the world, particularly related to the report's finding that $385 billion in so-called "hidden debts" are owed to China.

Since AidData also published the dataset that it used to evaluate 13,427 Chinese-funded projects, other scholars are also looking at that data and questioning some of the group's findings.

Professor Deborah Brautigam and Yufan Huang, researchers at the China-Africa Research Initiative (CARI) at Johns Hopkins University, have spent the past several weeks going through the data and concluded in a new briefing paper that AidData's report "is unduly alarmist."

Specifically, the CARI duo challenges AidData's use of averages, not factoring in the role of outliers, and allocating the full value of a Chinese loan used as part of a joint venture to the borrowing country, both of which they contend distort the figures.

Key Highlights From CARI's Briefing Paper on AidData's BRI Finance Report

• OVER-STATED THE PROBLEM: The “hidden debt” ($309 billion) and “underreported debt” ($385 billion) problem with Chinese loans is not as serious as the numbers suggested in a recently published AidData report. 

• FAILED TO ACCOUNT FOR OUTLIERS: The median figure for “underreported debt” is 1.8% of GDP, however, AidData reports that the “average” country is underreporting its Chinese debt by 5.8% of GDP, failing to note that this average is subject to large outliers.

• MISCALCULATED JOINT VENTURE DEBT: AidData’s methodology overestimates host government liabilities by including the entire Chinese loan to a joint venture as a host country debt (against World Bank Debtor Reporting System guidelines), even when the host country owns as little as 10% of the investment.

• MISSING CRITICAL CONTEXT: [AidData's] presentation without important context, using averages without highlighting outliers, and choosing to include Chinese loans to JVs as full liabilities of the host government, despite those government’s minority shares, and against World Bank rules, were unfortunate choices that could hamper greater understanding of this important issue.

SUGGESTED READING:

• The China-Africa Research Initiative: What is the Real Story of China’s “Hidden Debt”? by Deborah Brautigam and Yunfan Huang
• AidData: Banking on the Belt and Road: Insights from a new global dataset of 13,427 Chinese development projects