Today we feature a fascinating discussion with Deborah Brautigam and Kevin Gallagher, two of the world’s foremost experts on Chinese lending to the Global South. The conversation provides a glimpse of an emerging landscape: how Chinese influence will shift, and how those shifts will impact the Global South.

Both Brautigam and Gallagher’s reveal that Chinese lenders are increasingly wary about exposure to debt in certain countries. This was already true in 2019, and the pandemic and its resultant economic crises only strengthened this trend. Both their research units have reported massive plunges in lending by Chinese state banks (notably the China Exim Bank and China Development Bank.)