The latest data shows that the total amount of loans received by developing countries from China will not be less than $1.1 trillion. More than half of the tens of thousands of loans issued by China over the past 20 years have expired, while many borrowing countries are facing financial difficulties and enormous debt repayment pressure at this time.
The famous William& AidData, a research laboratory at Mary University. The laboratory collected loans ranging from $1.1 trillion to $1.5 trillion provided by China to 21000 projects in 165 countries over the past 20 years.
Reuters said that this may be the most comprehensive study currently on China's loan issuance to foreign countries.
The report states that the peak of Chinese lending occurred in 2016, with a total lending amount approaching $150 billion. After the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, it fell back to below US $100 billion in 2020.
According to a report from William Mary University, nearly 80% of developing countries that receive Chinese loans are currently facing financial difficulties.
  This massive project to export China's excess production capacity to developing countries has been in operation for ten years.
Most of China's loans have been directed towards building roads, airports, railways, and power plants, covering vast regions such as Latin America and Southeast Asia. This has to some extent driven the economic growth of relevant countries and also brought their governments closer to Beijing, making China the world's largest creditor country.
However, China's approach has also attracted widespread criticism from the international community, who argue that Beijing's irresponsible lending, which disregards the debt repayment ability of the borrower, has led some developing countries to fall into a debt trap.
Sri Lanka is a typical example of the victims of China's debt trap. The government went bankrupt due to its inability to repay China's huge debts and leased its ports to China for debt repayment. Zambia, Serbia, Ghana and other African countries have defaulted on a large number of Chinese debts to varying degrees and are unable to repay them. At present, they can only wait for China to reduce their debts.
According to data from AidData, 55% of countries are currently in debt repayment period. At this moment, the global financial industry has deteriorated, interest rates have risen, currencies in many countries have depreciated, economic growth has slowed down, and many new difficulties have emerged.
CNN quoted Brad Parks, the head of AidData Lab and the report author, as saying that many loans were issued at the beginning of the the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, with a grace period of five to seven years, and an additional two-year grace period during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, the situation is different... over the past decade, China has been the world's largest official creditor, and now we are at a critical point where China has actually become the world's largest official debt collector, "Parks said.
The report from AidData states that more than half of the loans issued by the People's Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange in 2021 were relief loans.
The report states that "Beijing is playing an unfamiliar and unsettling role - as the world's largest official debt collector
The database of AidData includes $1.34 trillion in loans and allocation commitments provided by the Chinese government and state-owned banks to public and private sector borrowers in low-income and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2021. As of 2021, the total amount owed by borrowers from these developing countries to Chinese lending institutions ranges from 1.1 trillion to 1.5 trillion US dollars.