China’s 84 credit mishaps compare with 158 in total by all 22 members of the Paris Club, an informal group of rich-country governments including America, Japan and Britain (see chart). China was perhaps unlucky in lending a lot at a bad time, just before the prices of oil and other commodities exported by African countries began to drop in 2014. In almost all these cases, China simply gave borrowers more time to repay. In only four did it reduce the face value of the debt (Cuba, Iraq and Serbia, twice). Its approach thus resembles that of Western lenders in the 1980s, when they seldom provided deep debt relief.
The pandemic may force China to move from forbearance to forgiveness. Otherwise the authors fear that a debt “overhang” may inhibit growth in poor countries. China has joined the G20’s “common framework” for debt relief, which is meant to bring it into line with the Paris Club. In becoming a big lender to poor countries, China has followed in the footsteps of the club’s leading economic powers. It has also repeated a number of their blunders. Now it must follow them in writing off some of its past mistakes. Who is China’s Bono?
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