After lending $1.3 trillion to developing countries, mainly for big-ticket infrastructure projects, China has shifted its focus to bailing out many of those same countries from piles of debt. The initial loans were mostly part of the Belt and Road Initiative, which Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, started in 2013 to build stronger transportation, communications and political links in more than 150 countries. But now the two main Chinese state banks that provided most of the infrastructure loans have reduced their new lending. Rescue loans climbed to 58 percent of…
China Is Lending Billions to Countries in Financial Trouble
