U.S. Raises New Concerns Over Chinese Lending Practices

A Treasury official will call for greater transparency over emergency currency “swap” loans to struggling countries by China’s central bank.

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A senior Treasury official plans to raise concerns about China’s practice of making certain types of emergency loans to debt-ridden countries.

The United States is raising new concerns about China’s practice of making emergency loans to debt-ridden countries, warning that a lack of transparency surrounding such financing can mask the fiscal predicaments facing fragile economies that have turned to China for help.

A senior Treasury official, Brent Neiman, will publicly air concerns about the practice on Tuesday during a speech in which he will urge the International Monetary Fund to push China for greater clarity about its lending terms. Earlier this year, the Biden administration broached the issue directly with Chinese officials in Washington during a meeting of a recently created bilateral economic and financial working group.

Chinese loans to countries already struggling to repay their debts are being made through China’s central bank using so-called swap agreements. These agreements allow countries to borrow Chinese renminbi and keep those funds in their central reserves while using the U.S. dollars that they hold to repay foreign debts.

The financing is essentially a line of credit, in which a country swaps its own currency for renminbi and agrees to pay Beijing a high interest rate. The arrangement allows those countries to use their dollar reserves to finance trade or other government needs. They can also use the funds to pay debts owed to Chinese banks or to make purchases from China, creating even deeper ties to its economy.

China has provided more than $200 billion in emergency financing in recent years. Chinese state media reported this year that the central bank had 31 currency swap agreements in force worth a combined $586 billion. Chinese currency loans tend to come with higher interest rates than those offered by the Federal Reserve or the I.M.F.

Such currency loans do not always appear on the balance sheet of the borrowing nation, obscuring the extent of its liabilities. That lack of information can make it harder for other investors to know how deeply in debt a country is and has fueled criticism that the Chinese loans could leave the recipients worse off.

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