As the world’s largest official creditor, China’s global lending extends far beyond the widely perceived image of financing infrastructure in developing countries. According to new research by AidData, Chinese official sector institutions provided nearly 1 trillion US dollars in loans and grants to high-income countries between 2000 and 2023. This amounted to nearly 45% of the total value of Chinese lending and grants worldwide in this period. In addition to providing corporate loans in advanced economies, Chinese state-owned banks have financed infrastructure projects there and increasingly supported Chinese companies in acquiring foreign firms. This acquisition financing has increasingly focused on sensitive sectors, whose share rose from 46% in 2015, when Made in China 2025 was launched, to 88% in 2023.

What drives China’s growing financial engagement in advanced economies? What opportunities does Chinese state-backed finance create for businesses and strategically important sectors in advanced economies? Can increasing involvement of Chinese financing create new economic dependencies and geopolitical risks? How are Western governments adapting their own financing policies in response to China? Is Beijing effectively reshaping the rules of global finance?