China casts giant shadow over emerging nations’ chase for debt relief

Poorest countries face $35 billion in debt-service payments to official and private sector creditors in 2022, with over 40 percent of the total due to China, according to the World Bank.

From a $360 million project to expand Zambia’s international airport in Lusaka to a $1.4 billion city port in Sri Lanka’s capital of Colombo, China is the missing piece in the puzzle of a number of debt talks under way in developing markets.