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The international community has been criticizing the Belt and Road Initiative, claiming it will push the Belt and Road countries into a debt trap.

Yet there has been no substantive research confirming the claim is true. Such criticisms are mostly part of the politicization of what essentially is an economic issue, especially since data show that the Belt and Road Initiative can shorten logistics time by about 2.5 percent, reduce global trade costs by 2.2 percent, and increase global real income by as high as 2.9 percent.

Government's debt doesn't stunt growth

According to the Barro-Ricardo effect, government debt does not affect economic growth at all. And research by the International Monetary Fund shows that there is an optimal debt ratio between the GDP growth of the different countries and their governments' sovereign debt. According to this study, if debt reaches the optimal ratio, it will maximize the economic growth rate.

Economists across the world have been debating on the relationship between government debt and economic development. Yet since the Belt and Road projects are being implemented only since 2013, there is not enough data to carry out an in-depth study into the relationship between the infrastructure projects and the economic growth of the Belt and Road countries.

However, this has not stopped economists, political scientists, government officials, think tanks and the media from India, the United States, Australia and other countries to "classify" it as part of China's "debt-trap diplomacy".

For example, Indian geo-strategist Brahma Chellaney published an article in the World Press Syndicate in January 2017 in which he had used the term "debt trap" to stigmatize the Belt and Road Initiative. Scholars like Chellaney accuse China of using opaque loan conditions to provide infrastructure financing in order to gain access to these countries' military or strategic resources.

By blatantly terming this as a form of debt-trap diplomacy, the scholars portray the Belt and Road Initiative in a bad light. However, the politicians and political scientists from the above-mentioned countries and regions that politicize economic issues are not without counter-arguments.

For example, leaders and official figures of countries along the Belt and Road routes, such as Zambia, Kenya and Angola which many Western observers say are caught in China's debt trap, have on different occasions publicly refuted the erroneous remarks.

Indeed, even some prominent US scholars and think tanks have studied the data and published reports refuting the "China debt-trap theory". For example, Deborah Brautigam and Meg Rithmire, two distinguished professors of political economy at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard University, respectively, have asserted that China's "debt trap" is a myth. The scholars also said that in some countries like Montenegro, Kenya and Zambia, there is clear evidence that the Western media spread such fears without providing any evidence to support their claim.

Also, a RAND Corporation report from the US says that railway connectivity will boost the export value of countries along the Belt and Road by 2.8 percent.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and many Chinese scholars have been repeatedly refuting the West's "debt trap diplomacy theory". Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin, for instance, quoted World Bank data on July 2022 to say that 49 African countries had borrowed $696 billion. But some 75 percent came from multilateral financial institutions and private financial institutions.

Four interesting features of BRI

Our research into the Belt and Road Initiative has uncovered four interesting features.

First, ironically, politicians in countries along the Belt and Road route who hyped up the "debt trap theory" are the first ones to strengthen cooperation with China when they come to power. For instance if they happen to be in the opposition, they can gain enough public support and thus votes to oust the ruling party by leveraging China's "debt trap diplomacy theory".

What is really ironic is that once these opposition politicians come to power, they do a U-turn and seek Chinese investments because they understand the importance of boosting the national economy.

Second, a key feature of Chinese investment in Belt and Road countries is that it tends to focus on long-term mutual economic benefits. This is a natural consequence of China's political and social structures.

It is the surety that the Chinese government will honor its commitments that has earned China support and praise from the Belt and Road countries. This is very important as the period of ROII (return on infrastructure investment) tends to be very long and profits cannot be made in the short term.

No wonder Chinese investors in Belt and Road countries always pay greater attention to long-term rather than short-term economic benefits. For example, according to Indonesia's official estimates, the Jakarta-Bandung railway line in Indonesia, which could start operations from May, is built by China for a cost of about $8 billion.

But while it is likely to generate more than $23.1 billion in revenue, it will take the next 40 years to realize it, according to our research.