"China needs risk assessment, anti-corruption measures to address ‘challenging’ belt and road environments", 28 November 2021

China needs to ramp up its risk assessment and anti-corruption measures to mitigate political dangers and credit instability in its Belt and Road Initiative, analysts said, following a similar call from President Xi Jinping.

Despite seeing concrete success with its flagship investment programme, Xi emphasised businesses’ responsibility to assess overseas risk regularly, as well as the need to establish an “all-weather” risk monitoring system and a thorough anti-corruption legal framework in a speech last week.

This came after China’s pivot to green finance in a pledge to stop funding coal plants overseas in September, as well as a bombing attack against a convoy of Chinese engineers in Pakistan in August.

The risks mentioned in Xi’s speech arise from reputational concerns, political instability in recipient countries and debt repayment issues, according to Tianyu Chen, an economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit (The EIU). [...]