“It’s no secret…China is by far the largest bilateral creditor to African governments,” said Mike Pompeo, America’s secretary of state, in June 2020, blaming it for creating an unsustainable debt burden. The World Bank disclosed ib July 2020, how much governments owe to China (and other lenders). The World Bank report revealed that developing countries owed $104 billion to China at the end of 2018. The total includes soft loans from China’s government, semi-soft loans from “policy banks”, such as China Development Bank, and profit-seeking loans from state-owned commercial lenders. The same countries owed $106bn to the World Bank and $60bn to bondholders…

The new figures confirm Mr Pompeo’s observation that China is by far the biggest bilateral creditor to Africa, and in many poor countries elsewhere. It accounts for about 20% of the total foreign debt owed by the 73 governments eligible for the G-20 moratorium on debt payments due to the COVID-19 pandemic (the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI)). That is more than all of the Paris Club lenders, including America, Britain and Japan, combined.

Excerpts from Public Finance: The Debt Toll, Economist, July 4, 2020