A new report by researchers from Johns Hopkins University is giving China better than expected marks for its performance in helping to restructure the crippling debt loads carried by some African countries.
The report is based on a detailed evaluation of Beijing's participation in the Debt Service Suspension Initiative, or DSSI, an international vehicle for developed nations to support struggling countries like Angola and Zambia.
But, despite some caveats, the report released this week by Deborah Brautigam and Yufan Huang from the China Africa Research Initiative found that overall, China"fulfilled its role fairly well as a responsible G-20 stakeholder." "The metric by which you evaluate [China's] performance depends on what your expectations were for the initiative," Brautigam told VOA, noting that this was the first time the world's second-largest economy had joined a multilateral initiative - a move one G-20 source called"miraculous."
In Zambia, for example, Chinese creditors wanted assurances their relief wouldn't be used to pay off the bondholders, while the bondholders were concerned that any relief from their side might go toward paying off China.
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