Last year, researchers at AidData, the World Bank, the Harvard Kennedy School, and the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany found that Beijing has dramatically expanded emergency rescue lending to sovereign borrowers in financial distress —or outright default- when the China's Belt and Road Investments have failed.
Essentially, however, China has been bailing out its own banks, the study found. You can download the study here.
TLDR:
China had undertaken 128 rescue loan operations across 22 debtor countries worth $240 billion [by March 2023 when the study was published]. These include many so-called “rollovers,” in which the same short-term loans are extended again and again to refinance maturing debts.
Less than 5 percent of Beijing’s overseas lending portfolio supported borrower countries in distress in 2010, but that figure soared to 60 percent by 2022. Therefore, China's new funding schemes pivoted away from infrastructure project lending to ramping up liquidity support operations. Nearly 80% of its emergency rescue lending was issued between 2016 and 2021.
China does not offer bailouts to all BRI borrowers: low-income countries are typically offered a debt restructuring that involves a grace period or final repayment date extension but no new money, while middle-income countries tend to receive new money to avoid default. The reason is that these middle-income countries represent 80% or more than $500 billion of China’s total overseas lending, thus posing major balance sheet risks, so Chinese banks have incentives to keep them afloat via bailouts.
Borrowing from Beijing in emergency situations comes at a high price. Rescue loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) carries a 2% interest rate, while the average interest rate attached to a Chinese rescue loan is 5% in comparable situations.