Kathmandu. The United States has become China’s largest recipient of debt globally as China shifted its priorities for financing projects from developing countries to high-income countries.
Under the cover President Donald Trump has launched a trade war with China, America’s big projects are being built on China’s debt financing.
According to the study, the United States has received the highest number of official loans from China, consuming more than US$200 billion in loans for nearly 2,500 projects and activities, according to the Dhaka Tribune, according to a report published on Tuesday by AdData, a research laboratory of the American University of William & Mary.
China has been heavily criticized by the US and Western governments and the media for setting a debt trap when it finances large projects in poor and developing countries. But in the 23 years between 2000 and 2023, the United States and EU countries are now benefiting from China’s debt investment.
According to Reuters, the report said that in recent years, Beijing has increased its debt investment in high-income developed countries faster than developing countries.
The share of lending to low- and lower-middle-income countries was 88 percent in 2000. This share has fallen to 12 percent in 2023. Beijing has also reduced lending for infrastructure projects to the Global South under its Belt and Road Initiative, the report said.
At the same time, it has increased its share of support to middle-income and high-income countries from 24 percent in 2000 to 76 percent in 2023. For example, the UK received $60 billion in loans while the European Union received $161 billion.
In the report, China revealed that from 2000 to 2023, China’s loans and grants totaled $2.2 trillion in loans and grants to 200 countries in every region of the world.
China has long been seen as a creditor to developing countries through its Belt and Road Initiative (B&R). But now its credit priorities are shifting towards developed economies. China is supporting strategic infrastructure and high-tech supply chains in areas such as automated technology, artificial intelligence and clean energy.
The size of Beijing’s investment is two to four times larger than previously estimated, Addata said in a statement, making China the world’s largest official lender. More than three-quarters of China’s foreign debt operations now support projects and activities in upper-middle-income countries and high-income countries.
Chinese state-owned entities are “active in every corner and region of the Americas,” financing LNG projects in Texas and Louisiana, data centers in Northern Virginia, terminals at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport, the Matterhorn Express natural gas pipeline and the Dakota Access oil pipeline, the report revealed.
Beijing has invested in acquisitions of high-tech companies. Chinese state-owned lenders have provided loans to several Fortune 500 companies, including Amazon, AT&T, Verizon, Tesla, General Motors, Ford, Boeing and Disney, the report said.
