| I'll repost the top voted comment from r/anime_titties for this article, since apparently most users here were fooled by the reporting: "
This is just a rehash of the awful AP article from yesterday: https://apnews.com/article/china-debt-banking-loans-financia... It amounts to what is essentially misinformation. > Countries in AP’s analysis had as much as 50% of their foreign loans from China and most were devoting more than a third of government revenue to paying off foreign debt. Two of them, Zambia and Sri Lanka, have already gone into default, unable to make even interest payments on loans financing the construction of ports, mines and power plants. Yes. BILATERAL LOANS. i.e. a fraction of a country's total debt. China amounts to 65% of Nigeria's bilateral loans, but <4% of their total debt (as an example) The VAST majority of debt in these countries is owed to private creditors (in London and New York) via eurobond loans. Those loans have far higher interest rates, often require massive principle repayments and are generally impossible to renegotiate or suspend in times of debt distress. Eurobonds are what caused Sri lanka to default, what caused Zambia to default and what are causing everyone else to default. During covid China suspended more debt repayments than the rest of the intl community combined, despite having only 30% of the total lending. Doesn't sound very evil to me. There are plenty of real problems with China's historic lending, but jesus the lies need to stop.
" To add to that, only ~10% of Sri Lanka's outstanding loans are owed to Beijing, in any form, and even if you add up every company with any PRC ties whatsoever and the AIIB, it's only ~20% of outstanding loans. Considering how close Sri Lanka ties are, probably every other debtor country would have a lower ratio. It's unfortunate that the Associated Press and Fortune have reduced their credibility to the level of Hollywood accountants, but I guess that's how the cookie crumbled when there's so much geopolitical pressure to fudge reporting. |