Will China rescue Pakistan and Sri Lanka?

Rajapaksa Mattala Airport is a glaring example of unviable Sri Lankan investments.

One of the crucial aspects of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme for countries facing debt is debt restructuring. This helps the country to achieve macroeconomic stability and enables it to achieve debt sustainability through the Extended Fund Facility arrangement that is often extended by the organisation. IMF funds come with certain conditions, like removing subsidies which are considered populist and affect the government's revenue collection. So countries look for alternative funding that does not force them to take unpopular measures. China has emerged as an important lender to South Asian countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But in the past few years, it has been facing major challenges as these countries are in a severe economic crisis, and its investments have not yielded the expected returns.