AidData, the development research lab at William & Mary College in Virginia, published a landmark report this week that provides the most comprehensive overview to date of Chinese financing of projects along the Belt and Road. Researchers pored through 13,247 projects in 165 countries worth $843 billion from 2000 through 2017.

The report sparked a torrent of media coverage this week, mostly on the news about $385 billion of so-called "hidden debts."

But the data in this report tells a much more nuanced story about Chinese overseas development finance than what was portrayed in the news. AidData's Executive Director Brad Parks joins Eric & Cobus to walk through the report's key findings and explain why Chinese debt financing is incredibly complicated.

SHOW NOTES:

Download the full report: Banking on the Belt and Road
AidData Blog: AidData’s new dataset of 13,427 Chinese development projects worth $843 billion reveals major increase in ‘hidden debt’ and Belt and Road Initiative implementation problems

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