China does not always collect its debts on time

CHINA’S LENDING boom to poor countries is turning sour, as governments struggle to repay their debts to its state-owned lenders like the Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank. So how will China handle countries on the brink of default? Will it show the solidarity one developing country might expect from another? Or will it insist on its pound of flesh?Some think defaults would be good for China. It is often accused of “debt-trap diplomacy”: lending heavily to poor countries with an eye to seizing their strategic assets, such as ports, when they cannot repay. The truth is more prosaic. A fresh effort to count China’s debt restructurings finds that when faced with a debtor that cannot repay, China mostly just kicks the can down the road.