China hands out twice as much development money as the US and other major powers, new evidence shows, with most of it coming in the form of risky high-interest loans from Chinese state banks.
Over 18 years, China has granted or loaned money to 13,427 infrastructure projects worth $843bn across 165 countries, according to research.
Much of this money is linked to the Belt and Road strategy, which uses China’s expertise in infrastructure projects to build new global trading routes.
Critics fear that the high-interest loans funding many Chinese projects are saddling unsuspecting populations in sky-high debt.
