How China Became the World’s Top Development Financier
When Xi Jinping celebrated a decade of Beijing-funded global development last month, he said the effort has focused on “on enhancing connectivity." New figures show just how closely China has linked itself to other nations. China is the world’s No. 1 source of international development finance, with some $1.34 trillion in loans and grants disbursed over 22 years for 20,985 projects in 165 low- and middle-income nations, according to a compendium published Monday.
The research lab behind it, AidData at the Williamsburg, Va. university William and Mary, aims to produce the most authoritative database of China’s development-finance work by locating loan documents and other firsthand material from the borrowing governments themselves and other sources, information Beijing tends to obfuscate. AidData concludes that the flip side of China’s active lending is that it has emerged as the world’s largest official debt collector, one now both firefighting problems and future-proofing its program.
A separate Rand Corp. study based on AidData numbers and other sources estimates that in the period it studied, China’s state-run banks and companies channeled nearly six times as much money into projects as the U.S. allocated.
It says the acceleration of Chinese support for the developing world during the Xi era has “upended the world of development assistance." China’s largess—much of it disbursed during the decade-plus Xi has been in power—helped build the perception of Beijing as better at pulling off bold engineering projects than wealthier Western nations. The recent Beijing summit celebrated the leader’s vision for China-led development, the Belt and Road. Now, China and the developing world are digesting the impact of its
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