China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched in 2013, is central to Xi Jinping’s global ambitions, using infrastructure lending to expand Beijing’s political and economic reach. The BRI has established a presence in more than 100 countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, making China the world’s largest bilateral creditor.
Research from AidData, the World Bank, and the Harvard Kennedy School shows that more than 80 percent of China’s government loans to developing countries have gone to nations already in or near default. Seventy-five developing countries now face severe debt crises, with record repayments to China projected at $35 billion this year, $22 billion of it from the world’s poorest nations.
To keep these countries afloat, Beijing has shifted from financing infrastructure to issuing bailouts, conducting 128 rescue operations worth $240 billion across 22 countries. These so-called “rescue loans” often carry interest rates more than twice those charged by the IMF and are routinely refinanced through opaque “swap lines” and short-term rollovers, concealing hundreds of billions in hidden debt. The result is not sustainable growth but deepening dependency, as fragile economies are forced to cut spending on essential services while Beijing protects its own banks and expands its influence.
Much of the infrastructure funded under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has proven either unnecessary or substandard. Across the developing world, Chinese-backed projects, such as luxury hotels, sports stadiums, and ports, often serve no economic purpose, providing little benefit to citizens while deepening national debt.
Quality issues are widespread. Ecuador’s $2.25 billion Coca Codo Sinclair Dam, built by Sinohydro, developed over 17,000 structural cracks before shutting down in 2024. In the Pacific Islands, Chinese-built stadiums quickly began leaking and eroding, while in Gabon, similar facilities faced repeated delays and sewerage failures.
Many projects remain unfinished, forcing countries to pay interest on incomplete work. Kenya’s $5 billion Mombasa–Nairobi railway stopped short of its destination when Beijing withheld further funding, and Montenegro’s half-built “road to nowhere” stalled after China refused to finance the next phase. In Pakistan’s Gwadar, BRI investments have yet to deliver basic infrastructure like electricity or water.
Together, these examples expose a pattern of wasteful and poorly executed projects that burden nations with mounting debt while leaving behind crumbling or incomplete infrastructure of little real value.
Many indebted nations also suffer from deep corruption, where deals with China enrich political elites while trapping their countries in unsustainable debt. In numerous cases, leaders personally profit from Belt and Road contracts even as their economies collapse under the weight of unpayable loans. With most BRI infrastructure incomplete or already crumbling, citizens see no benefit, only the steady erosion of their national sovereignty as control shifts toward Beijing.
A new book, “Attacking the Dragon” by A. Marc Ross, explores the growing backlash from developing nations that have realized their leaders traded national sovereignty for Chinese financing. Though the book is a work of fiction, it reflects a very real trend: many countries that joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) now find themselves trapped in unsustainable debt, unable to service massive loans extended under the program.
In an interview, Ross told me that he had spent several years in and out of China, working on outbound investment projects during the boom years from 2004 to about 2013. He explained that during that period, Chinese companies were “very busy doing SPACs here in the U.S., as well as making acquisitions and investments.” His own work focused on facilitating those deals, helping Chinese firms invest in the United States when such transactions were at their peak in popularity.
While Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) were promoted as financial innovations for taking startups public, many wealthy Chinese investors in reality used them as vehicles to move capital out of China and into Western markets, particularly during times when Beijing tightened capital controls. “And a lot of people were using it, frankly, as escape funds, a way to move capital out of China into whether it’s the United States, Canada, safe havens in case they had to flee.” But that all changed when Xi Jinping came to power.
Once Xi launched the Belt and Road Initiative, he tightened capital controls to reduce money flowing out of China and redirect outbound investment toward Belt and Road projects, which served both his personal ambitions and the strategic goals of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Ross explained how observing this shift, from private capital outflows to state-directed overseas investment, became the foundation for his book. “That’s really where my knowledge base comes from,” he said.
In the novel, terrorists destroy a Chinese-built dam in a foreign country, killing civilians and igniting a wave of anti-China sentiment. As global opinion shifts sharply against Beijing, one heavily indebted nation decides to stop repaying its Chinese loans. “And China considers what to do about it and decides that a military invasion in response is not the right answer. And they’re sort of forced to suck it up, and they complain at the Security Council, but get nowhere, of course, because it’s blocked.” Explains Ross.
Throughout the story, China suspects the United States of orchestrating the sabotage and undermining its Belt and Road ambitions. However, in classic thriller fashion, the reader later learns that a different, unseen actor has been manipulating events all along, expertly operating from the shadows while purposefully allowing blame to fall on America.
The book is not far from reality and may well serve as a glimpse into the future. Across the developing world, resentment toward Chinese Belt and Road projects has increasingly erupted into violence, riots, and sabotage. In Pakistan, the centerpiece of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Chinese nationals and projects have been repeatedly targeted by separatist groups such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and the Balochistan Liberation Front.
Between 2015 and 2020, twelve major attacks killed seventy-six people, mostly Pakistanis, and in 2024, seven Chinese workers were killed in Gwadar. The violence has included bombings of Chinese consulates, engineers, and hotels frequented by diplomats, reflecting growing anger among locals who see China’s presence as exploitative rather than beneficial.
Protests and riots have also erupted elsewhere. In the Solomon Islands, violent demonstrations in 2021 destroyed much of Chinatown after the government cut ties with Taiwan in favor of Beijing, leaving over $140 million in damage. In Myanmar, resistance forces have seized more than two-thirds of Chinese project sites since the 2023 “1027 Offensive,” targeting infrastructure and mining ventures tied to the junta.
Similar unrest has occurred across the Pacific, where resentment over corrupt deals and “stadium diplomacy” has triggered anti-Chinese riots in Tonga, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu. Together, these uprisings reveal the growing backlash against China’s global reach, where citizens, seeing their sovereignty sold for debt and failed projects, are now fighting back against Beijing’s expanding influence.
Ross, referring to his book, explained that the story’s sabotage, coups, and refusal to repay debts highlight China’s greatest fear: “As a result of this coup in the book, other countries will say, yeah, that’s a good idea. Why don’t we repudiate the debt?” he said.
This raises a pressing question, especially in light of the real-world anti-BRI violence in Pakistan, Solomon Islands, Myanmar, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu: at what point might debt-strapped nations around the world decide to “say no to China” and either refuse repayment, stage coups, or, at the very least, use elections to oust China-friendly governments?
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