The Discordant ‘Debt Trap’ and ‘Secrecy’ Narratives on the Belt and Road Initiative

Abstract

This article discusses two main orders of criticisms of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the ‘debt trap’ narrative and the ‘secrecy’ narrative. The first refers to the alleged aim of Chinese lenders to trap recipient countries in their debt to seize the financed assets. According to the second, instead, Chinese lenders would keep contracts with debtor countries secret with the ultimate goal of obtaining a privileged position in the repayment of their credits. Although very controversial, as evidenced by the fact that they are contested by many academic authors, both narratives continue to circulate simultaneously and often unchallenged in the Western media. Moreover, they are discordant and incompatible with each other: if Chinese institutions claim a privileged position among all other creditors, it means that they have no interest in creating a debt trap and acquiring the resulting foreign assets, whereas if they really wanted to acquire these foreign assets, then they would have no interest in being repaid before other creditors. This plethora of contradictory accusations can be interpreted as further evidence of the negative bias with which the BRI is viewed, especially in Western circles, due to the heated geopolitical confrontation between the US and China.