GLOBAL CHINA INITIATIVE
The Global China Initiative (GCI) examines the extent to which Chinese overseas economic activity and engagement with international institutions fosters a more stable, socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable world economy.
GLOBAL CHINA RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
The current narrative on debt sustainability often ignores the issue of what a government owns (assets) versus what a government owes (liabilities). While conventional approaches largely focus on the liability side, the kinds of assets a country is trying to build are vital to development and debt sustainability.
A new working paper by Yan Wang and Yinyin Xu voices concerns from the Global South that the prevailing debt sustainability analysis (DSA) framework has ignored public assets. Following a descriptive review of debt issues in Africa, Wang and Xu point to the importance of the public sector balance sheet in understanding debt sustainability. Their analysis reviews the role of 3,126 completed infrastructure projects, co-financed and jointly built by China and host countries, focusing on whether and to what extent the projects addressed infrastructure bottlenecks. Wang and Xu argue these completed projects form part of a country’s public operational assets that generate essential social services, jobs, government revenues, exports and growth.
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Latest News & Publications
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Webinar Summary: Mapping the Risks of China’s Global Coastal Development to Marine Socio-Ecological Systems
May 19, 2022By Kate Chi On Wednesday, May 18, Blake Alexander Simmons, Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources at Colorado State University, [ More ]
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Restarting Development Finance to Handle Debt Distress in the COVID-19 Era
May 15, 2022By Ying Qian The COVID-19 pandemic has levied a brutal force on many emerging and low-income countries: not only their public health systems, but their economies... [ More ]
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Debt Distress and Development Finance in the COVID-19 Era
May 15, 2022The economic shock from the COVID-19 pandemic has set back the development agendas for emerging markets and developing countries. Many developing countries have suffered from... [ More ]
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Webinar Summary – Chinese Loans to Africa Database: Lending in the Pandemic Era
May 09, 2022By Jyhjong Hwang On Thursday, April 28, the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center hosted a webinar discussion and demonstration of the Chinese Loans to... [ More ]
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Government Shareholders, Wasted Resources and Climate Ambitions: Why is China Still Building New Coal-Fired Power Plants?
May 02, 2022Despite its carbon neutrality commitments and the prospect of increasingly stringent climate policy measures, China is continuing to build new coal-fired power plants domestically. Amid... [ More ]
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Webinar Summary: A Spatial Environmental Assessment of Select Belt and Road Initiative Projects in Indonesia
April 29, 2022By Yudong (Nathan) Liu As part of the Spring 2022 Global China Research Colloquium, the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center hosted a virtual discussion... [ More ]
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How Chinese Loans to Africa Changed During the COVID-19 Pandemic
April 25, 2022By Oyintarelado (Tarela) Moses and Jyhjong Hwang The 2022 update to the Chinese Loans to Africa (CLA) Database, managed by the Boston University Global Development Policy... [ More ]
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Chinese Loans to Africa During the COVID-19 Pandemic
April 22, 2022In 2020, the Chinese Loans to Africa (CLA) Database, managed by the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, recorded 11 new loan commitments worth $1.9... [ More ]
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Webinar Summary: Simulating the Impacts of China’s Clean Energy Transition Abroad
April 11, 2022By Cecilia Han Springer On Wednesday, March 16, Ian Kieffer, Global China Fellow with the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center and Ian Sue Wing, [ More ]
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Experts React: China’s National Development and Reform Commission Issues New Guidance on Greening the BRI
March 31, 2022On Monday, March 28, 2022, China's National Development and Reform Commission issued new guidelines on greening the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the ambitious multi-billion-dollar... [ More ]