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| BEIJING — When Suriname couldn’t make its debt payments, a Chinese state bank seized the money from one of the South American country’s accounts. | 北京——当南美国家苏里南无法偿还债务时，一家中国国有银行从该国的一个账户里没收了这笔钱。 |
| As Pakistan has struggled to cope with a devastating flood that has inundated a third of the country, its loan repayments to China have been rising fast. | 巴基斯坦一直在努力应对淹没了该国三分之一面积的毁灭性洪水，而它向中国的贷款偿还额一直在迅速增加。 |
| When Kenyans and Angolans went to the polls in presidential elections in August, the countries’ Chinese loans, and how to repay them, were a hot-button political issue. | 8月，肯尼亚人和安哥拉人都在投票选举总统时，两国的中国贷款——以及如何偿还这些贷款——是一个热门的政治议题。 |
| Across much of the developing world, China finds itself in an uncomfortable position, a geopolitical giant that now holds significant sway over the financial futures of many nations but is also owed huge sums of money that may never be repaid in full. | 在大部分发展中世界，中国都处于一个尴尬的境地，作为一个地缘政治巨人，它现在对许多国家的金融未来拥有重大影响力，但借出的巨额资金可能永远无法被全部偿还。 |
| Beijing was the lender of choice for many nations over the past decade, doling out funds for governments to build bullet trains, hydroelectric dams, airports and superhighways. As inflation has climbed and economies have weakened, China has the power to cut them off, lend more or, in its most accommodating moments, forgive small portions of their debts. | 在过去10年里，北京是许多国家的首选放贷国，为各国政府提供资金建设高铁、水电大坝、机场和高速公路。随着通胀攀升和经济疲软，中国有能力切断资金、提供更多贷款，或者免除一小部分债务以示通融。 |
| The economic distress in poor countries is palpable, given the lingering effects of the pandemic, coupled with high food and energy prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many borrowed heavily from China. In Pakistan, overall public debt has more than doubled over the past decade, with loans from China growing fastest; in Kenya, public debt is up ninefold and in Suriname tenfold. | 疫情的影响挥之不去，再加上俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后的食品和能源价格居高不下，贫穷国家的经济困境是显而易见的。许多国家向中国大量借款。在过去10年，巴基斯坦的整体公共债务翻了逾一番，其中来自中国的贷款增长最快；肯尼亚的公共债务增加了九倍，苏里南则有10倍。 |
| The nature of China’s loans is compounding the challenges. China issues far more of its loans to poor countries at adjustable interest rates than Western governments or multilateral institutions. With global interest rates rising swiftly, debt payments are soaring when these nations can least afford to pay. And their weak currencies make it even more costly for many countries to repay China’s loans, almost all of which must be repaid in dollars. | 中国贷款的性质加剧了挑战的严重程度。与西方政府或多边机构相比，中国以可调利率向贫穷国家发放的贷款要多得多。随着全球利率迅速上升，在这些国家的偿还能力最弱的时候，偿付金额却在飙升。而且几乎所有的贷款都必须以美元偿还，许多国家疲软的货币使还贷成本变得更高。 |
| Bureaucratic warfare among powerful government ministries in Beijing has already forestalled any easy solution to the debt problem, and threatens to delay it further. A new slate of ministers will take over in March, likely restarting the process to address debt issues. | 北京权势强大的政府部门之间的官僚斗争则使债务问题难以得到任何简单的解决方案，并有可能使之进一步拖延。一批新的部长将于明年3月上任，他们可能会重启解决债务问题的进程。 |
| China joined France last month in negotiating the outlines of a deal to reduce the debt of Zambia, with the final details still to come. It was done under the so-called Common Framework, a plan by the Group of 20 of the largest advanced and emerging economies to relieve the debt burdens of dozens of poor countries. | 上个月，中国与法国一道就减少赞比亚债务的协议纲要进行了谈判，但最终细节仍有待公布。这是在所谓的“共同框架”下完成的，所谓“共同框架”是由最大的发达和新兴经济体组成的二十国集团为减轻数十个贫穷国家的债务负担而制定的一项计划。 |
| In August, Beijing forgave about 0.3 percent of its loans to African countries. It focused on 20-year-old defaulted debts, money that China was very unlikely to get back. | 8月，北京免除了对非洲国家约0.3%的贷款。它关注的是有着20年历史的违约债务，这是一笔中国极不可能收回的钱。 |
| Western nations are pushing for more such moves, on a much broader scale. “We’re constantly telling China that we want them to come to the table and participate in the Common Framework,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an interview in Washington. | 西方国家正在更大范围推动更多此类举措。美国财长耶伦在华盛顿接受采访时说：“我们不断告诉中国，我们希望他们坐到谈判桌前，参与共同框架。” |
| Chinese officials and academics say the West is too quick to blame China. While most U.S. government financing for poor countries is now done through grants, not loans, American hedge funds have been big lenders to developing countries by buying up their bonds. | 中国官员和学者说西方在指责中国方面过于迫不及待。虽然现在美国政府为贫困国家提供的大部分资金都是通过赠款而非贷款进行，但美国的对冲基金通过购买发展中国家的债券，成为了这些国家的重要放贷方。 |
| China also complains that multilateral lenders like the World Bank, traditionally led by Americans, and the International Monetary Fund have not forgiven loans to poor countries — although doing so could endanger their credit ratings. | 中国还抱怨，传统上由美国人领导的世界银行以及国际货币基金组织等多边贷款机构没有免除对贫穷国家的贷款——尽管这样做可能会危及它们的信用评级。 |
| “Western commercial creditors and multilateral institutions, who hold the biggest share of debts, refused to be part of the effort,” Wang Wenbin, a foreign ministry spokesman, said at a ministry briefing a month ago. | “债权占比最大的西方商业债权人和多边机构始终拒绝参与有关缓减债行动，”外交部发言人汪文斌在一个月前的外交部例行记者会上说。 |
| China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has insisted repeatedly that his country is making an earnest attempt to help borrowers. He has also continued to lash out at the Trump administration’s past accusations that China engaged in “debt-trap diplomacy,” that is, lending so much money to poor countries that they would become financially dependent on Beijing. | 中国外交部长王毅一再坚称，中国正在认真尝试帮助借款国。他还继续猛烈抨击特朗普政府过去对中国从事“债务陷阱外交”的指责，即向贫穷国家提供大量资金，以致它们在经济上依赖北京。 |
| “These are not ‘debt traps,’ but monuments of cooperation,” Mr. Wang said this year. | “这些都不是什么‘债务陷阱’，而是一座座合作的丰碑，”王毅在今年曾经说道。 |
| China and the United States have favored different approaches to debt troubles. In the past, Beijing has tended to lend more money to some countries, including Argentina, Ecuador and Pakistan, so that they can continue to make payments on existing loans. China’s approach helps these countries afford imports of food and fuel, but leaves them with ever more debt. | 中美在解决债务问题上采取了不同的方法。过去，北京倾向于向包括阿根廷、厄瓜多尔和巴基斯坦在内的一些国家提供更多贷款，以便它们能够继续偿还现有贷款。中国的做法帮助这些国家负担食品和燃料的进口，但也让它们背负了越来越多的债务。 |
| The United States prefers requiring government agencies and banks to forgive part of their loans. This was done during the Latin American debt crisis in the 1980s, so that borrowers could afford to repay the interest on the remaining debt. | 美国更倾向于要求政府机构和银行免除部分贷款。该国在20世纪80年代拉丁美洲债务危机期间就是这样做的，借款方因此有能力偿还剩余债务的利息。 |
| But this approach requires banks to immediately accept heavy losses, a tough sell in China given its economic slowdown and housing crisis. Weakening home prices and stalled real estate transactions have already left Chinese banks with bad loans to developers and home buyers. | 但这种做法需要银行立即接受巨额损失，由于中国经济放缓和房地产危机，这在中国是一个难以接受的事情。房价疲软和房地产交易停滞已给中国的银行带来了大量不良贷款。 |
| Those conditions also mean that Chinese banks are reluctant to lend more to countries, including under the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s policy framework for developing countries. Such contracts dropped 5.8 percent in the first eight months of this year from the same period last year, according to data compiled by China’s Ministry of Commerce. | 这些条件也意味着中国的银行不愿向其他国家提供更多贷款，包括它对发展中国家的政策框架“一带一路”倡议下的国家。根据中国商务部汇编的数据，今年前八个月，此类合同较去年同期下降了5.8%。 |
| The sheer scale of China’s lending until very recently allowed many governments to keep racking up debt. | 中国到最近为止的庞大贷款规模让许多政府的负债不断增加。 |
| Sri Lanka borrowed heavily from China. Even after the pandemic began and tourism dried up, China made four more large loans from March 2020 through August 2021, to help keep Sri Lanka solvent. | 斯里兰卡从中国借了很多钱。即使在疫情开始并且旅游业枯竭之后，中国在2020年3月至2021年8月期间又提供了四笔大额贷款，帮助斯里兰卡保持偿付能力。 |
| Then China stopped, exacerbating an economic and political crisis. Violent street protests toppled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in July. | 后来中国停止提供贷款，斯里兰卡的经济和政治危机加剧。7月，暴力街头抗议推翻了总统拉贾帕克萨。 |
| “The Rajapaksa government took Chinese funding for granted, and they thought China would continue to support it, so they went on borrowing and investing in projects without any plan to pay back,” said Nalaka Godahewa, a former minister in Mr. Rajapaksa’s government. | “拉贾帕克萨政府认为中国的资金是理所当然的，他们认为中国会继续支持它，所以他们继续借贷和投资项目，没有任何偿还计划，”拉贾帕克萨政府前部长纳拉卡·戈德赫瓦说。 |
| Countries are also being buffeted by macroeconomic forces as central banks around the world raise rates. Many nations took out adjustable-rate loans from China that initially seemed manageable when rates were low — and are now stuck with ballooning payments. Their loans are typically calculated by adding several percentage points to an interest rate in London that was 0.3 percent at the start of this year but is now around 4.2 percent. | 随着世界各地的央行纷纷加息，各国也受到宏观经济力量的冲击。许多国家从中国获得了可调整利率的贷款，这些贷款最初在利率低的时候似乎还可以应付，但现在却受不断膨胀的偿还额所困。他们的贷款通常是在伦敦同业拆借利率基础上增加几个百分点来计算的，该利率在今年年初为0.3%，但现在约为4.2%。 |
| “It’s like when you take out a mortgage and choose an adjustable mortgage, and it was a good bet for a long time, until it isn’t,” said Deborah Brautigam, the director of the China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University. | 约翰霍普金斯大学中非研究计划主任德博拉·布罗伊蒂加姆说：“这就像申请抵押贷款，你选择了可调整利率的抵押贷款，在很长一段时间里它看上去都是个不错的选择，直到有一天不再是这样。” |
| In 2014, Argentina borrowed $4.7 billion from three Chinese state-owned banks to build two hydroelectric dams in southern Patagonia. Bradley Parks, the executive director of AidData, a research institute at William and Mary, a university in Williamsburg, Va., estimated that Argentina’s twice-a-year interest payment was $87 million in January and $137 million in July. | 2014年，阿根廷从三家中国国有银行借款47亿美元，用于在巴塔哥尼亚南部建设两座水电站。发展政策援助数据中心的执行董事布拉德利·帕克斯估计，阿根廷半年一次的利息支付在1月份为8700万美元，7月份为1.37亿美元。该研究机构位于弗吉尼亚州威廉斯堡的威廉与玛丽学院。 |
| Argentina will owe a payment of over $170 million on the loan in January if interest rates keep rising at the same pace, he calculated. Argentina’s finance ministry did not respond to emails and text messages about the loan. | 他计算，如果利率继续以同样的速度上涨，阿根廷将在1月份需要支付超过1.7亿美元的贷款。阿根廷财政部没有回复有关这笔贷款的电子邮件和短信。 |
| According to the I.M.F., three-fifths of the world’s developing countries are now having considerable trouble repaying loans or have already fallen behind on their debts. More than half the world’s poor countries owe more to China than to all Western governments combined. | 据国际货币基金组织称，世界上五分之三的发展中国家现在在偿还贷款方面遇到了相当大的困难，或者已经拖欠债务。世界上一半以上的贫穷国家欠中国的钱比欠所有西方政府的总和还要多。 |
| For now, Chinese officials in poor countries face unpleasant jobs as debt collectors. | 目前，在贫穷国家的中国官员需要进行不受欢迎的讨债工作。 |
| “You have a lot more influence when you’re providing the loan,” said Brad Setser, an international payments specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, “than when you’re begging for repayment.” | 外交关系委员会的国际债务偿还专家布拉德·塞策说：“你在提供贷款时的影响力要大得多。” |
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