By Kai Wang.
The Reality Check is on the British Broadcasting Corporation.
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China's lending for construction projects around the world has been controversial.
China has been accused of leaving poorer countries vulnerable to pressure from Beijing by leaving them struggling to repay debts.
China rejects that narrative, which it accuses the West of tarnishing its image.
It says that there is not a single country that has fallen into a debt trap as a result of borrowing from China.
China is one of the largest single creditor nations.
The loans to lower and middle-income countries have tripled over the past decade.
China's lending commitments are likely to be much higher than the figures suggest.
AidData, an international development body at William & Mary University in the US, found that half of China's lending to developing countries is not reported in official debt statistics.
It is kept off the government balance sheets because it is directed to state-owned companies and banks.
According to AidData, there are more than 40 low and middle-income countries with debt exposure to Chinese banks that is 10% of their GDP.
At least five countries have debts to China that are equivalent to 20% of their GDP.
Much of the debt owed to China relates to large infrastructure projects like roads, railways and ports, and also to the mining and energy industry.
Richard Moore, the head of Britain's foreign intelligence agency MI6, said in an interview that China uses debt traps to gain leverage over other countries.
Beijing has long denied the accusation that it gives money to other countries and then cedes control of assets if they can't meet their debt repayments.
Critics of China often cite the example of Sri Lanka, which was built a massive port project with Chinese investment.
The billion dollar project using loans and contractors from China became mired in controversy and struggled to prove viable, leaving Sri Lanka saddled with growing debts.
In order to get more Chinese investment, Sri Lanka agreed to give China Merchants a 70% stake in the port on a 99-year lease.
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The Sri Lankans protested against the Chinese company's proposed stake in the port.
Chatham House questioned whether the "debt trap" narrative was valid given that the deal was driven by local political motives and that China never took formal ownership of the port.
There is no evidence that China has taken advantage of its position to gain strategic military advantage from the port, as it points out that a large proportion of Sri Lanka's overall debt was owed to non-Chinese lenders.
There is little doubt that China's economic involvement in Sri Lanka has grown in the past decade, and there are concerns that this could be used to advance its political ambitions in the region.
There are other parts of the world where Chinese lending has been controversial, with contracts that could give China leverage over important assets.
There are no cases of Chinese state-owned banks seizing assets in the event of a loan default in the hundreds of loan arrangements studied by AidData.
China does not publish records of its foreign loans, and most of its contracts contain non-disclosure clauses which prevent borrowers from revealing their contents.
Professor Lee Jones at Queen Mary University of London says confidentiality agreements are very common in international commercial loans.
Much of China's development financing is a commercial operation.
Membership in the Paris Club allows major industrialised nations to share information about their lending activities.
The rapid growth in China's reported lending compared to others can be observed using World Bank data, despite China not joining this group.
Western governments tend to lend at lower rates than China.
These loans are close to commercial market rates and are four times more expensive than a loan from the World Bank.
The repayment period for a Chinese loan is less than 10 years, which is1-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-65561-6556
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Chinese loans have higher interest rates than other loans.
Chinese state-owned lenders typically require borrowers to maintain a minimum cash balance in an offshore account.
Brad Parks, Executive Director of AidData, says that if a borrower fails to repay their debt, China can simply debit funds from their account without having to collect on bad debt through a judicial process.
This approach is rarely seen in western loans.
The G20 nations, which have the largest and fastest-growing economies, are offering debt relief for poorer countries to help them deal with the impact of the Pandemic.
China says it has contributed the highest amount of debt repayment of any country taking part in the plan.
More than $10.3 billion has been delivered in debt relief by G20 countries since May 2020, according to the World Bank.
The World Bank said it couldn't give us a breakdown by country.
