李月芬：我曾告诫一些非洲国家，大量借款时要小心(12)

Some developing countries have also started to borrow domestically, so they"ve accumulated big domestic debt. If you look at the debt composition of low income countries, you will see that for them, domestic debt constitutes about 50% of the total debt of some countries.
Guancha: There are frequent rumors on Western media of China’s so-called “debt trap diplomacy”. What does the reality of Chinese lending look like?
Li Yuefen:I think especially for me, who has worked on the debt issues for a few decades, I see this opinion shaping thing happening. I"ve also seen it gradually being corrected. It started at the very beginning with the Sri Lanka port incident, involving misinterpretation or misreporting, because it was covered in the news media that China took over the port for 99 years. That was a shock to the world and also to the people working on the debt issues. Gradually you"ve seen some of the report coverage about China using debt as a means to grab strategically important assets of debtor countries. Then there was this discussion about whether or not China has been using debt as an instrument to create a “debt trap” for countries in order to push for their foreign policy.