Is the 'Debt Trap' Narrative Dead?

Even Mike Pompeo, on his last trip to Africa to inveigh against closer relations with China, didn’t push the repeatedly debunked line that China has deliberately created debt traps to ensnare countries. China-Africa Project head Eric Olander credits the ongoing efforts of researchers to delve into the reality of Chinese financing with the demise of this poisonous lie. Prominent articles over the past two years include China-Africa Research Institute head Deborah Brautigam’s piece in The Atlantic this February, a post by the Rhodium Group in 2019, and a 2019 analysis by Development Reimagined. The efforts by the Schiller Institute and its Southwest Asia coordinator Hussein Askary have also played an important role in countering this British-inspired lie inserted into the discourse of development to prevent a new paradigm from displacing the one they control.