How China Collateralizes

The first comprehensive analysis of how China secures priority repayment from emerging economies

Working Paper
ThE First Tranche Blog

Out of public sight, China’s state-backed lenders secure priority repayment from emerging economies with cash collateral

2025-06-25

The head office of China Development Bank in Beijing. Photo by 維基小霸王 via Wikimedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

New report and cache of Chinese debt contracts reveal that the commodity export revenues of developing countries are routed to offshore bank accounts, raising fiscal governance and debt transparency concerns.

President of Indonesia Prabowo Subianto and President of China Xi Jinping during Subianto’s first state visit to China in November 2024. Photo by the Ministry of State of Indonesia via Wikimedia Commons, used in the public domain.
ThE First Tranche Blog

China’s expanding investments in Indonesia force both to balance risk and reward

2025-06-12

La expresidenta de Taiwán, Tsai Ing-Wen, se reúne con participantes en un curso de capacitación para funcionarios de ocho de los aliados de Taiwán en América Latina y el Caribe en 2017. Foto de la Oficina del Presidente, República de China (Taiwán) vía Flickr, licenciada bajo CC BY 2.0.
ThE First Tranche Blog

Entre China y Taiwán, el concurso por aliados latinoamericanos

2025-06-05

Balancing Risk and Reward: Who benefits from China's investments in Indonesia?

Policy Report

Balancing Risk and Reward: Who benefits from China's investments in Indonesia?

How China Collateralizes

Working Paper

How China Collateralizes

Assessing the spatiotemporal dynamics of seasonal and perennial surface water resources across Lesotho’s agroecological zones

Journal Article

Assessing the spatiotemporal dynamics of seasonal and perennial surface water resources across Lesotho’s agroecological zones

Balancing Risk and Reward

Who benefits from China's investments in Indonesia?

Full Report

About AidData

We use rigorous methods, cutting-edge tools, and granular data on international development to answer the question: who is doing what, where, for whom, and to what effect?

Listening to Leaders 2025

Development cooperation over a decade of disruption

Full Report

AidData's Research In the News

China’s bid to influence the Philippines heats up

The Economist

China's collateral demands curbing emerging countries' ability to manage finances, study shows

Reuters

Map Shows China Aid Money Around the World

Newsweek

China is now the biggest debt collector in the developing world, report says

NPR

New Working Papers

Working Paper #
136

How China Collateralizes

Anna Gelpern, Omar Haddad, Sebastian Horn, Paulina Kintzinger, Bradley C. Parks, Christoph Trebesch

June 25, 2025

Working Paper #
135

The Speed of Aid: Strategic Urgency in International Emergency Relief

Andreas Fuchs, Samuel Siewers

June 15, 2025

Working Paper #
134

Foreign Borrowing, Sovereignty, and Public Opinion in the Global South: Traditional Lenders or China?

David Janoff Bulman, Ning Leng, Kerry Ratigan

March 27, 2025

Programs

China’s Global Engagement

Systematically tracking China's portfolio of overseas investments and soft power activities

Foreign Policy Influence

Quantifying the economic and soft power tools of China, Russia, and the United States

Gender Equity in Development

Innovation in research to reduce gender bias in development

GeoQuery

Enabling the next generation of geospatial analysis

Geospatial Tools and Impact Evaluations

Innovation and rigor to measure impact more effectively

Listening to Leaders

Perspectives of leaders in low- and middle-income countries