Belt & Road Watch is a monthly survey of Chinese overseas financing, state-owned-enterprise activity, debt-distress developments and united-front operations, drawing on public records from AidData, the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, CSIS, the Jamestown Foundation, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission and government filings in recipient countries.
The Big Picture: A Smaller, Sharper BRI
Thirteen years after Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative, the program that Beijing once marketed as a single, sprawling infrastructure push is fragmenting into something more targeted. Tracking data released this spring by the Green Finance & Development Center at Fudan University indicates that BRI engagement rebounded to roughly $213.5 billion in 2025, eclipsing the 2016 peak. But the composition has shifted. Records suggest Chinese lenders and state-owned enterprises are pulling back from large sovereign-backed megaprojects and redirecting capital into smaller mining, electric-vehicle, battery, renewable-energy and digital-infrastructure deals — what Chinese officials have begun calling the “New Three.”
AidData researchers document a parallel shift on the lending side. Approximately 60% of China’s overseas loan portfolio is now owed by countries in some form of debt distress — arrears, restructuring, or active conflict — compared with just 5% in 2010. China’s policy banks have responded by sharply curbing new infrastructure lending and ramping up short-term liquidity facilities and currency-swap lines, a defensive posture designed to protect Chinese creditors rather than expand Chinese footprint.
Against that backdrop, the following eight developments tracked this month warrant attention from readers following accountability reporting on Chinese overseas activity.
1. Tazara Railway: A $1.4 Billion Corridor War Gambit
The largest BRI-adjacent announcement this cycle is the revamp of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway (Tazara), a Cold-War-era line first built by Chinese engineers in the 1970s. Industry reporting by MINING.com indicates the $1.4 billion upgrade will be delivered by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), a subsidiary of state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation, in partnership with Chinese copper majors CMOC Group and Zijin Mining. The 1,860-kilometer line connects Zambia’s copper belt to Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam port on the Indian Ocean.
Records indicate the project is structured differently from earlier BRI rail deals: Chinese miners with existing Zambian and Congolese copper operations are co-investing alongside the contractor, giving Chinese state-owned mining capital a direct stake in the logistics corridor that carries their output. Freight capacity is projected to rise from roughly 200,000 tonnes per year to 2.4 million tonnes. The deal is a textbook example of what AidData has called “co-located” Chinese financing — transport infrastructure built to serve Chinese-owned extractive assets.
It also lands in an active corridor war. The United States is backing the competing Lobito Corridor running west from the Congolese-Zambian copper belt to Angola’s Atlantic coast. Tazara’s revival shifts freight flows back east, toward Chinese-financed port facilities.
2. Chinese Port Financing Hits $24 Billion Across 90 Countries
An AidData analysis published by the College of William & Mary in March found that, between 2000 and 2025, Chinese official entities and state-owned enterprises extended loans and grants worth nearly $24 billion for 168 port projects in 90 countries. Recent additions include financing for Lobito Port in Angola, Sandino Port in Nicaragua and the Mubarak Al-Kabeer Port in Kuwait.
According to AidData’s dataset, Chinese financiers increasingly co-locate port investments with critical-mineral operations and special economic zones. Separately, CSIS has examined the strategic implications of PRC port investments in the Western Hemisphere, flagging homeland-security concerns around dual-use port access. In February 2026, the White House released “America’s Maritime Action Plan” in response to the growing Chinese maritime footprint; the details of that plan’s implementation warrant continued tracking.
3. Laos: Debt Above 100% of GDP, No IMF Program
A Lowy Institute study released this spring documents that public and publicly guaranteed debt in Laos now exceeds 100% of gross domestic product, with the kip having lost roughly half its value against the dollar since the start of 2022. The $6 billion Laos-China Railway — a BRI flagship — is a costly asset on the books, but the Lowy analysis indicates the larger share of debt distress is tied to unplanned hydropower and transmission projects financed by Chinese policy banks and state-owned enterprises.
Unlike Zambia or Sri Lanka, Laos has not approached the International Monetary Fund for a structured restructuring. Records suggest Vientiane and Beijing are instead pursuing what analysts describe as an “extend and pretend” approach, rolling over maturities without a public acknowledgement of impairment. The Lao Party Congress in January 2026 formalized a new fiscal-sovereignty posture aimed at reducing debt, but without substantive relief from Chinese creditors, the country risks what the Lowy authors call a “lost decade.” This is a development TIJ will continue to track given the accountability gap created by the absence of IMF-standard transparency.
4. Zambia’s Yuan Experiment and the Debt Fallout
Zambia, which defaulted on its Eurobonds in November 2020 and became the first test case for the G20 Common Framework, has moved into a new phase of its relationship with its largest sovereign creditor. A Bloomberg report in January documented technical-level discussions between Lusaka and Beijing over a potential currency swap, and MiningFocus Africa reported that the Bank of Zambia has begun accepting yuan-denominated mining-tax payments from Chinese operators.
Zambia’s 2023 restructuring deal covered $6.3 billion in bilateral debt, of which $4.1 billion was owed to China, but roughly $7 billion in commercial and bondholder claims remains unresolved. Filings indicate China’s willingness to participate in the Common Framework came only after prolonged delay; the yuan-settlement arrangements now emerging raise separate questions about how far Zambian monetary policy has been drawn into China’s offshore renminbi architecture. Analysts at the Rhodium Group have detailed how Zambia became a template for Chinese external-debt renegotiation that is now being applied elsewhere.
5. CPEC: $62 Billion Committed, Fewer Than Half of Projects Complete
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor remains the single largest BRI bilateral program, with commitments now exceeding $62 billion according to IMF and Pakistani government filings cited in The Diplomat. Of roughly 90 planned projects, only 38 have been completed. Gwadar Port and its adjacent airport — the corridor’s showcase assets — operate at a fraction of projected capacity.
Approximately 22% of Pakistan’s $131 billion external debt is now owed to China, per IMF filings. Pakistani accountability investigations referenced in academic reviews have implicated officials in CPEC-related corruption probes totalling more than $625 million in questioned expenditures. Separately, the security environment continues to deteriorate: Baloch separatist groups have repeatedly targeted Chinese workers and infrastructure, and Chinese security personnel and private military contractors have taken on an increasingly visible protective role, a development the Stimson Center has flagged as a potential sovereignty concern for Islamabad.
CPEC 2.0, announced in 2023 and operationalized through a series of 2025 agreements, narrows the program to industrial zones, agriculture and extractive industries. Records suggest Beijing has grown selective about new Pakistani commitments in light of the security and debt-service environment.
6. Digital Silk Road: Huawei-AXIAN MoU and the Africa Frontier
In February 2026, Huawei and pan-African operator AXIAN Telecom signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Shanghai covering digital connectivity, digital finance and digital operations across AXIAN’s footprint, which spans roughly a dozen African markets. The MoU covers 5G deployment, cloud-native network architecture, AI-driven operations and digital BSS platforms.
In March 2026, Singapore-based Circles announced a strategic collaboration with Huawei covering charging, policy control, cloud infrastructure and intelligent automation for AI-native telecom stacks. The Council on Foreign Relations tracks the Digital Silk Road as covering four pillars: wireless networks, surveillance cameras, subsea cables and satellites. All four pillars have seen new Chinese commercial activity in the past six months; the AXIAN and Circles deals represent the wireless and network-core slice of that broader push, at a moment when Western governments continue to press allies to exclude Huawei from sensitive infrastructure.
7. Jamestown Foundation: 2,294 United Front-Linked Organizations in Four Democracies
In February 2026, the Jamestown Foundation published “Harnessing the People: Mapping Overseas United Front Work in Democratic States.” The report identifies 2,294 overseas organizations with documented links to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front system across four democracies: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. Canada hosts the second-largest network, with 575 entities.
Jamestown’s authors distinguish documented united-front linkages — defined by leadership ties to Chinese embassies, consulates, the United Front Work Department, or affiliated domestic agencies such as the China Overseas Friendship Association — from mere diaspora community groups. The report indicates many of the mapped entities present under names such as “Chinese Associations,” “Hometown Associations,” “Chambers of Commerce” and “Anti-Discrimination Alliances.” Jamestown flags functional linkages to illicit technology transfer, talent recruitment, voter-mobilization efforts and transnational repression of diaspora dissidents.
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission maintains a standing research track on overseas united-front work, and the Jamestown dataset adds comparative depth across allied democracies. The scale documented suggests a political-warfare infrastructure that operates in parallel to — and often in support of — the commercial BRI footprint. Every factual claim about individual organizations in this space requires attribution to a public-record linkage; Jamestown’s dataset provides that chain for the 2,294 entities mapped.
8. Confucius Institutes: Closures, Rebranding, and German Academic Reassessment
The U.S. Government Accountability Office confirmed in its 2024 report that the number of Confucius Institutes on U.S. campuses fell from roughly 100 in 2019 to fewer than five, driven largely by federal-funding restrictions. The National Association of Scholars has noted, however, that few institutes were fully wound down; many continued as rebranded programs under new names. The U.S. Department of Defense is in the process of identifying successor programs that meet the statutory criteria for funding restriction.
A 2026 academic study by Alicja Polakiewicz and Eva Seiwert of German university decisions on Confucius Institutes, published in the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, finds that German terminations were driven more by strategic cost-benefit reassessments than by documented instances of direct interference. The paper uses Hirschman’s “exit, voice, loyalty, neglect” framework to categorize institutional responses. Readers considering parallels to the U.S. experience should note the methodological difference: U.S. closures were largely triggered by binding federal-funding conditionality; German closures have been driven by bottom-up faculty and administrator reassessment in the absence of national legislation.
Data Points to Watch Next Month
Four developments are on TIJ’s watch list for the May cycle. First, the pending Zambia-China currency-swap framework, which would mark the first sovereign yuan-swap line in sub-Saharan Africa and raise further questions about the Common Framework’s coherence. Second, any public signal from the International Monetary Fund on a prospective Laos program; records suggest Vientiane’s window for avoiding a disorderly debt event is narrowing. Third, the next phase of U.S. Maritime Action Plan implementation and any reciprocal Chinese port-access restrictions. Fourth, the release of additional Jamestown Foundation regional extensions of the united-front dataset to cover Australia, New Zealand and France, which would expand the comparative picture across the Five Eyes and EU democracies.
Warranting Deeper TIJ Investigation
Three threads from this month’s cycle warrant sustained investigative attention. The first is the structural overlap between Chinese state-owned mining capital (Zijin, CMOC) and Chinese state-owned logistics capital (CCECC, CRCC) in African corridor projects such as Tazara — a vertical-integration pattern that is not visible in a single transaction but emerges clearly in the layered filings. The second is the degree to which yuan-denominated tax and commodity settlement in Zambia is being replicated, informally or formally, in other African mining jurisdictions with significant Chinese operator presence. The third is the accountability gap in Laos: without an IMF program, there is no Article IV-style public documentation of the sovereign balance sheet, and debt-service data flows through Chinese and Lao state channels that resist independent verification.
Each of these threads connects documented public records — AidData’s lending and port databases, Boston University’s Chinese Loans to Africa Database, CSIS’s infrastructure analysis, Jamestown’s united-front mapping, and the formal IMF Article IV record for countries that engage with the Fund. The accountability standard for TIJ reporting in this space is consistent: every factual claim must rest on a public record, allegations must be distinguished from findings, and speculation about CCP intent must be labeled as such. The documented record in this cycle is more than sufficient to sustain the tracking that follows.
Belt & Road Watch is published monthly on the 21st. Primary source datasets: AidData’s China research portal, Boston University Global Development Policy Center’s Global China Databases, CSIS Reconnecting Asia, and the Jamestown Foundation’s overseas united-front dataset.