How China should handle its bad loans to poor countries
Time to work with Western creditors
How big is China’s Belt and Road Initiative? It is hard to pin down a number. The programme has been running for nearly a decade, during which time China has financed hundreds of infrastructure projects in dozens of countries. These include railways in Africa, ports in Asia and roads in Latin America. President Xi Jinping has called it the “project of the century”. The lofty rhetoric and opaque numbers fuelled fears that China was trying to reshape the world, by putting itself at the centre.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Distressing debt”
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