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China vs. the Multilateral Development Banks

The China in Africa Podcast

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Domestic Politics and Overseas Debt Restructuring in Small African Countries

I think there is this kind of risk when you turn these debt discussions into a matter of political face and creating this kind of defensiveness just escalates the problem to a point where no one can really quite back down on it. The other matter is that doing any kind of debt forgiveness is a hugely difficult issue for any of these Chinese banks, which you can understand. They are very, very unwieldy politicized bureaucracies that make any kind of autonomous decision making very, very difficult. And we've seen this play out as a problem in the Zambian case. I am not optimistic on any positive or dramatic shifts in how Chinese creditors are going to be approaching the problem.

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