More Problems More Money? Does China Lend More to African Countries with Higher Credit Risk Levels?

Over the past decade, China has provided billions of dollars in concessional and non-concessional finance to countries around the world. In light of these trends, both researchers and pundits have focused on China’s motivations for allocating development finance, particularly in Africa, due to debt sustainability concerns. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the ways in which creditworthiness may impact the Chinese government’s decision to allocate development finance. In doing so, it examines the impact of African countries’ creditworthiness levels on Chinese development finance commitments and whether it impacts the development finance they receive from China and the West differently. It also explores the impact of African country creditworthiness on Chinese loan cancellations and forgiveness.

This paper finds that a disproportionate share of Chinese government loan commitments to African countries are made to governments with high credit risk levels. In that same vein, it finds that China makes more development finance commitments to African countries with lower levels of creditworthiness compared to other Western donors. Finally, this paper finds that African countries’ creditworthiness impacts both loan forgiveness and, to a lesser extent, cancellations. As African countries’ creditworthiness decreases, their likelihood of having Chinese loan commitments cancelled, or some outstanding debt to Beijing forgiven, increases. These findings highlight the need for a more nuanced characterization of Chinese development finance activities in Africa by researchers, pundits, and policymakers. It also underscores the importance of greater transparency from—and coordination with—China in its approach to debt sustainability and its attitude towards risk on the African continent, as well as the importance of building African debt management and capacity to ensure responsible borrowing.

过去十年中，中国通过优惠和非优惠融资，向全球诸多国家提供了数十亿美元贷款。鉴于这些趋势，并且出于债务可持续方面的考虑，研究人员和专家已开始关注中国分配开发性金融的动机，特别是发往非洲的开发性金融。本文意在促进了解信誉度可能影响中国政府开发性金融资金分配决策的方式。为此，本文研究了非洲国家的信誉度等级对中国开发性金融承诺的影响，以及信誉度是否对其从中国和西方国家获得的开发性金融产生了不同的影响。本文还探索了非洲国家信誉度对中国贷款取消和贷款减免的影响。

本文发现，中国政府向信用风险等级高的非洲国家做出了比例不合理的贷款承诺。同样地，相较于西方国家，中国对信誉度等级较低的非洲国家做出了更多的开发性金融承诺。最后，本文发现非洲国家的信誉度对贷款减免和贷款取消均有影响，且对后者影响较少。随着非洲国家信誉度降低，中国政府取消对其的贷款承诺以及豁免某些未偿债务的几率提高。这些研究结论凸显出，研究人员、专家和政策制定者需要对中国在非洲的开发性金融活动更细致的特征描述。本文还强调了以下举措的重要性：中国在债务可持续举措以及对非洲大陆风险的态度方面提升透明度，其他国家加强与中国在这方面的协作，以及建立非洲债务管理和能力，保证负责任的借贷。