Publication

This text studies the potential disruptions to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) because of rising public debt. While the latter will not necessarily lead to a macroeconomic crisis in China, it could seriously diminish the ability of Chinese companies to invest in overseas infrastructure projects. This possibility, the text’s author continues, could then affect Chinese BRI investments in South Asian countries, and thereby spawn ‘new conditionalities’ while Beijing struggles to balance debt reduction with external investments.