At the end of 2021, of the 98 countries for whom data was available, Pakistan ($27.4 billion of external debt to China), Angola (22.0 billion), Ethiopia (7.4 billion), Kenya (7.4 billion) and Sri Lanka (7.2 billion) held the biggest debts to China.
As of January 2023, the five countries owning the most US debt are Japan ($1.1 trillion), China ($859 billion), the United Kingdom ($668 billion), Belgium ($331 billion), and Luxembourg ($318 billion).
An Associated Press analysis of a dozen countries most indebted to China — including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos and Mongolia — found paying back that debt is consuming an ever-greater amount of the tax revenue needed to keep schools open, provide electricity and pay for food and fuel.
The debt has usually been held by domestic institutional investors, particularly state-owned banks, whose investment and lending practices support government policies such as issuing bonds for infrastructure investment and insurance companies.
Despite having access to capital and being the second-largest economy in the world, China is still receiving loans and assistance from both banks. Since meeting the criteria for graduation from lending in 2016, the World Bank approved $9.6 billion in projects to China.
At the end of 2021, of the 98 countries for whom data was available, Pakistan ($27.4 billion of external debt to China), Angola (22.0 billion), Ethiopia (7.4 billion), Kenya (7.4 billion) and Sri Lanka (7.2 billion) held the biggest debts to China.
A neologism, the term was first coined by Indian academic Brahma Chellaney in 2017, to allege that the Chinese government leverages the debt burden of smaller countries for geopolitical ends. However, other analysts have described the idea of a Chinese debt trap as a "myth" or "distraction".
About a third of China's major cities are struggling to pay just the interest on debt they owe, according to a survey by Rhodium Group, a New York-based research firm. In one extreme case, in Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu province, interest payments were the equivalent of 74% of fiscal revenue in 2021.
Japan's debt-to-GDP ratio is the highest in the world due to a prolonged period of economic stagnation and demographic challenges.
China invests heavily in U.S. Treasury bonds to keep its export prices lower. China focuses on export-led growth to help generate jobs. To keep its export prices low, China must keep its currency—the renminbi (RMB)—low compared to the U.S. dollar.
Government Debt to GDP in Australia averaged 8.11 percent of GDP from 1971 until 2022, reaching an all time high of 28.60 percent of GDP in 2021 and a record low of -3.40 percent of GDP in 2008.
Average household debt grew by 7.3 per cent to $261,492 in 2021-22, according to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The national debt of Russia was forecast to increase between 2023 and 2028 by in total 36.3 billion U.S. dollars (+7.71 percent). This overall increase does not happen continuously, notably not in 2027 and 2028. The national debt is estimated to amount to 507.15 billion U.S. dollars in 2028.
China's debt overhang far exceeds the burdens facing the United States. As recently as 2020, total debt in the United States relative to GDP exceeded China's. But as of mid-2022, China's relative debt burden stood 40 percent higher than America's.
Analysts estimate China's outstanding government debts surpassed 123 trillion yuan ($18 trillion) last year, of which nearly $10 trillion is so-called “hidden debt” owed by risky local government financing platforms that are backed by cities or provinces.
The United States has the world's highest national debt with $30.1 trillion owed to creditors as of the first quarter of 2023.
Today, a government that defaults may be widely excluded from further credit; some of its overseas assets may be seized; and it may face political pressure from its own domestic bondholders to pay back its debt. Therefore, governments rarely default on the entire value of their debt.
A flurry of big spending packages and ballooning social welfare costs for a rapidly ageing population have left Japan with a debt pile 263% the size of its economy - double the ratio for the United States and the highest among major economies.
The major sectors and industries driving growth for China include the services sector, agriculture, manufacturing, and technology. China is also one of the world's largest exporters and importers in the world.
China's debt is nearly 44% of its GDP and its local governments owe nearly $5.14 trillion.
Domestic ratings company China Chengxin International Credit Rating estimates the hidden debt of local governments was in a range of 52 trillion yuan to 58 trillion yuan at the end of 2022, about 1.5 to 1.7 times the amount of explicit debt.
LONDON/JOHANNESBURG, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka owed Chinese lenders $7.4 billion - nearly a fifth of its public external debt - by the end of last year, calculations by the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI) published on Wednesday showed, an estimate higher than many others.
Between 2008 and 2021, China spent $240 billion bailing out 22 countries that are “almost exclusively” debtors in Xi Jinping's signature Belt and Road infrastructure project, including Argentina, Pakistan, Kenya and Turkey, according to the study published Tuesday by researchers from the World Bank, Harvard Kennedy ...
Pakistan's foreign debts amount to about $100bn (£83bn), meaning that the share owed to China is just under one-third. But China is Pakistan's biggest single creditor and tends to charge relatively high interest rates compared with multilateral lenders.