China's Belt and Road Bailout: Billions Spent on Loan Relief.
China has spent $240 billion bailing out 22 countries, mostly Belt and Road project debtors, between 2008 and 2021, according to a study by researchers from the World Bank, Harvard Kennedy School, Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the US-based research lab AidData. Most of the loans were made in the last five years of the study, from 2016 to 2021. The PBOC requires an interest rate of 5%, compared to 2% for IMF rescue loans, and most of the loans are extended to middle-income countries considered more important to China’s banking sector.