China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Challenges and Debt in Africa

Die Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s global infrastructure program, will increasingly focus on problematic projects and insolvent borrowers in the future. This is the result of a new study – „Belt and Road Reboot: Beijing’s Bid to De-Risk Its Global Infrastructure Initiative“ – from Aid Data, a research lab at the renowned College of William & Mary in the US state of Virginia. Rescue loans rose from five percent in 2013 to 58 percent in 2021. “Beijing plays as world’s largest official debt collector an unfamiliar and uncomfortable role,” writes Das Institut. According to Aid Data, under the BRI, China has worldwide lent $1.3 trillion since 2000, more than a trillion dollars still need to be paid back. 80 percent of all BRI projects are in financial difficulty.