Talk:Debt-trap diplomacy

Haiti

Had an edit undone [1] where I had added an entry for Haiti.

Reason for reversion was "not within scope of article", yet it seems to meet the definition of "an international financial relationship where a creditor country or institution extends debt to a borrowing nation partially, or solely, to increase the lender's political leverage".

@Qiushufang

IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 00:15, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I was under the impression that this article was only about the application of that definition to events related to China. If that is not consensus, feel free to re-add it. Qiushufang (talk) 01:33, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I view it as within the scope of the article, although perhaps the front part of the edit could be trimmed? Possibly with a main article hatnote to Haiti indemnity controversy? Also you should check that article to see if some of your proposed addition is wise to incorporate there as well. JArthur1984 (talk) 14:41, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

The article is certainly not limited to China.

But I think we should only stick to post-World War II phenomena. The older events are mixed up with colonialism, and we also need WP:HISTRS for their correct interpretation. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:02, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Senegal President Interview

Senegal's president, Macky Sall explains the 'lies' the western media is saying about him and China in interview. (30mins) INTERVIEW Interesting when he starts talking about interest rates of China V.s. the west and how much debt is owed to Chinese Creditors v.s. non Chinese private lenders. Roughly 19:00 mins into the interview. Interestingly enough he says: Western loans for African nations is higher with about 12% of the financing amount being due to insurance rate based on African nation's credit ratings. China's loans are only at 2.5-2.7% interest rate meaning the west *is* the debt trap taking far more money from African nation's. CaribDigita (talk) 09:44, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Keeping in mind WP:NOTFORUM, is there a concrete suggestion here to improve the article? Amigao (talk) 03:47, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

I am speaking to the facts or possible biases of the article. Do you have anything to contribute comment wise to the topic? CaribDigita (talk) 20:13, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

On the relevance of the IMF + World Bank material

I went to add a mention of that aspect of the article to the lead, both because it's presented as a major section in the article right now and because I thought it might help the reader understand the full breadth of the term "debt-trap diplomacy" at a glance. However, in actually looking into the sources, I don't really see the IMF or World Bank described as engaging in debt-trap diplomacy per se. The pure phrase "debt trap" definitely does get use in reference to both organizations and has for decades, but since they're not themselves sovereign states I don't think it's surprising that commentators refrain from describing their activity as "diplomacy". I can see that I'm not the first person to raise this issue here, but it doesn't seem like it's gotten any resolution still. I get the feeling that different contributors to this article have had clashing ideas about its scope: some want it to be about "predatory lending to countries generally" so to speak, while others want to stick to sources that specifically discuss the kind of activity Chellaney was commenting on.

My hunch is that if we're going to call the article "Debt-trap diplomacy", the latter framing makes more sense. The phrase "debt trap" is very general—there are plenty of sources that use it just to refer to the activity of loan sharks towards private individuals and so on. "Debt-trap diplomacy" has been framed much more particularly as a (rather hypothetical) geopolitical strategy rather in the vein of "subprime lending between nations", in which a rich country "tricks" a poor country into taking on loans it probably can't repay at attractive-looking interest rates and then seizes its assets or forces it to adopt policies that favor the rich country as a sort of collateral when it falls behind on payments, expanding the rich country's sphere of influence.

Of note, what the IMF and World Bank do is somewhat different from this. They impose (arguably malicious or self-interested) conditions on the borrowing country more at the beginning, as a condition of lending at all; when commentators criticize them, they tend to portray them as foisting a business-friendly, laissez-faire economic ideology on desperate countries that might not want this but can't afford to say no, thus opening up their economy to international corporate plunder from the moment they sign and all that. When trying to explain why a country might fall prey to debt-trap diplomacy, commentators often explicitly contrast it to the approach of IMF and World Bank, explaining that debt-trap diplomacy loans look more attractive up front because borrowing governments imagine or hope they can repay and avoid the bad conditions, and because they tend to come at nicer-looking interest rates than the IMF and World Bank's loans. (Many sources actually paint a picture where Chinese banks, like most private lenders, charge higher interest rates than the IMF and World Bank, but don't impose the same kinds of up-front conditions, making their loans more attractive to some governments.)

Criticism of the IMF and World Bank and criticism of debt-trap diplomacy both concern supposedly-manipulative lending to sovereign states, it's true, but they describe different strategies and couch them in different language, and one is applied specifically to bipolar relations between states only. If we take the initiative to group both types of commentary under the banner of "Debt-trap diplomacy", I think it's a bit WP:SYNTH, because the sources themselves don't really do that. It's not that we shouldn't mention the IMF and World Bank at all, but more that we should capture how the sources we have compare and contrast the approach of the IMF and World Bank with debt-trap diplomacy, since I think that's much more how the IMF and World Bank actually come up in articles that touch on the idea of debt-trap diplomacy directly. I have to say, I'm not sure there's really enough material directly focused on that comparison to justify there being a whole separate "IMF and World Bank" section, although I think they certainly deserve a mention in various places. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 04:44, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

As I continue to read the sources, I want to note, at least as far as China specifically vs. the IMF and World Bank, I'm seeing that sometimes the narrative around interest rates is the opposite—that the interest rates of loans from Chinese state banks are supposedly onerously high, and the IMF and World Bank's interest rates would be more favorable (provided they were willing to lend). I don't think this really changes my overall argument here, though. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 06:57, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

When has an IMF / World Bank loan been cheaper in a non- 'first world' country? The claim is that the debt trap is harming non-developed countries who cannot pay it back. Not first world ones who get the lowest interest rates. The rates are based upon a nation's credit worthiness, which are based upon risk to lender in the capitalist financial model. CaribDigita (talk) 15:13, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Here's some of what I've read that made me write that addendum:

"The IMF and World Bank say taking losses on their loans would rip up the traditional playbook of dealing with sovereign crises that accords them special treatment because, unlike Chinese banks, they already finance at low rates to help distressed countries get back on their feet."

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"Sri Lanka's efforts to borrow more have been thwarted by downgraded ratings. Bonds were reduced to junk status...Local analysts believe an agreement with the IMF would help with financial markets, and enable Sri Lanka to borrow again...'An IMF program puts Sri Lanka on a debt-sustainable path, and that creates credibility when you go to the markets,' said Murtaza Jafferjee, managing director of JB Securities, a financial consultancy in Colombo. 'After the Moody's downgrade, and without an IMF program, Sri Lanka will not be able to access the markets.'"

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"Several organizations have sketched out escape routes from the [Ghanian] debt trap, including more low-cost lending from multilateral banks like the World Bank."

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"What makes some nations sink deeper into Chinese debt, despite the risks of mortgaging their foreign-policy autonomy to Beijing?...The answer is several factors, including the comparative ease of borrowing from China, with IMF lending normally carrying stringent conditions and oversight. China does not evaluate a borrower state's creditworthiness, unlike the IMF, which will not lend if its assessment indicates that additional loans could drive the country into a serious debt crisis. Indeed, China is happy to lend until nations face a debt crisis because of the greater leverage it gives Beijing....Typically, China starts as an economic partner of another country, only to gradually become its economic master. In fact, the more desperate a borrower country's situation, the higher the interest rates it will likely pay on Chinese loans." (this is Chellaney, of course)

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"Credit from private capital markets or from Chinese policy banks also allowed governments to avoid the conditions typically attached to funds borrowed from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and various regional development banks. These conditions—some specific to a funded project, others related to macroeconomic policy—often were viewed as constraining debtor governments’ autonomy. Loans from China or international bond issues typically were more expensive, in interest rate terms. But they came without formal conditionality, though they might have included implicit promises to grant favorable market access to China, among other things."

You probably get the picture: a common take seems to be that the IMF and similar organizations actually give loans at lower interest rates than Chinese state banks or private lenders, but they won't lend unless the borrowing country agrees to arguably-onerous terms mean to "fix" their economy, like heavy cuts to public spending or privatization of state-run companies, especially if the country has poor credit. Chinese banks (and private lenders) are portrayed as lending to countries with poor credit without imposing these kinds of conditions, but instead charging higher interest rates and being less cautious about whether the country can repay or not. China in particular of course has been accused of all-but-planning for borrowing countries to default as a way of gaining leverage over them, hence the "debt-trap diplomacy."

That brings me back to my original reason for starting this thread: I don't think what the IMF and World Bank do really fits the idea of debt-trap diplomacy, whether their interest rates are lower or higher or whatever—their approach might be bad for the borrowing countries, arguably, but it doesn't really fit the picture of luring countries into attractive-looking but unrepayable debt and then forcing the country into doing various things afterwards as collateral when they run into trouble with the loan. (At this point people seem to have agreed that China hasn't really had a grand plan like that either, but that's what I understand the idea of debt-trap diplomacy as in any case.) When China has been demanding things of countries that can't repay, they have a different tenor from what the IMF would ask, too—ceding management of public resources to Chinese companies, foreign policy concessions, etc., more just stuff in China's interest. To the extent that the IMF might be self-interested, their policies seem more to favor "global finance"/Chicago School fans/etc. more than any one state. (That was me getting a little distracted...I think the more central point here is just that "diplomacy" implies state-to-state relations and "debt-trap diplomacy" specifically has always been used with regards to China's bilateral relations in the sources, whereas the IMF and World Bank and so on are not even state actors in themselves.) If we really want this article to be about the idea of debt-trap diplomacy in particular, and not just about possibly-malign lending to states in general, I don't really see how the "IMF and World Bank" section in this article belongs given all this, at least not in its current form. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 12:13, 11 October 2023 (UTC) 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 12:13, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Seems like projecting on what IMF has been guilty of. Britannica explains it aptly, as long as IMF is needed to bail countries out, the borrower will continue harmful policies without reform. Bailouts is what leads to long term dependency. And they sell their policies onto low income countries despite such neoliberal policies later hurts economic growth and sustainability and worsened inequality. Those countries often don't have much choice after IMF has aggravated their debt issues [2], but to continue the IMF policies to get another round of IMF money, instead of refusing policies which as you put it, "open up their economy to international corporate plunder". And that same cycle of worsening their debt and then bailing them out, has persisted for decades. And is why they get criticized because IMF isn't a charity and knows austerity harms the economy, but has not stopped, and has been criticized for continuing that.[3] They get criticized for both worsening and benefiting from a debt crisis and not allowing others to be bailed out without accepting further conditions, and so uses a debt crisis opportunistically to cement a long term dependency on their policies. KirklandWayne (talk) 15:55, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Sure, I'm not trying to debate any of that, it's just that this article is called "Debt-trap diplomacy", a phrase which first saw use in the late 2010s to describe aspects of China's foreign policy and has never been used in any of the sources cited here for any other purpose. We have articles like IMF and World Bank to detail their sins in. The state of this article at present makes it challenging for the reader to actually understand the life of the phrase "debt-trap diplomacy" over the course of the time it's seen use in the political discourse, partially because a fair amount of the information in it is not actually part of that story, and partially because the over-general scope of the article has lead to parts of that story being somewhat neglected so far.

Our goal here isn't to lambast all the actors ever guilty of trapping countries in debt, it's to fairly and proportionally summarize the eligible sources that touch on the "debt-trap diplomacy" idea, which is something much more specific. Note that neither of the sources you cited use the phrase "debt-trap diplomacy" anywhere, nor do they discuss the idea of one country (always China in the sources) luring another country into bad debt as a way of gaining leverage over them after they approach default. When the sources we have explicitly discuss "debt-trap diplomacy," that's what they're talking about every time. Whether or not this is a meaningful distinction to draw between what China might be doing and what the IMF or World Bank does is just not up to us as Wikipedia editors. The sources we actually have tend to contrast them more than equate them (as you can see from the quotes I cited above). Perhaps they're wrong to do that, their perspective is shallow, etc., but Wikipedia isn't the right place to fight that fight. See WP:NPOV, WP:OR. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 03:46, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

@CaribDigita@Mesocarp Is the article only about diplomatic conduct of China alone, and nobody else when it comes to exploiting debt? If so then they should then make that clearer on the introduction chapter. Because it gives the impression that only China is the one that engages in debt trap diplomacy, and nobody else. You should mention the specific term doesn't refer to others who commit systematic exploitation of debts and should make a note that allegations against IMF to exploit debt traps are not part of this article.

Still, Wikipedia should not be the place to predict things that have not happened. So many chapters created for China on debt trap diplomacy on Africa despite African governments owe three times more debt to Western banks, asset managers and oil traders than to China, and are charged double the interest.[4] And the article is looking more as a propaganda piece by giving the impression that Chinese debt trap diplomacy is real in Africa. Despite no empirical substantiation to prove that it's occuring.

What's not neutral is to create an article that appears to be generally about criticising parties for exploiting debt traps and yet only mention China despite few to none of the examples have been proven cases. But the IMF who has a long history of doing so, is what's to be omitted as if the only major party in the entire world that engages in debt trap diplomacy is China alone. So either specify the article is specifically on China's conduct, or agree it's an article generally about diplomacy that systematically creates and exploits debt. If it's the latter then IMF more than warrants a mention given both qualified allegations and history, and should have much more paragraphs of content dedicated to each historic examples, compared to the paragraphs of China's non existent cases.

Allegations have been made at IMF and World Bank loans, as poor nations are forced to abide to shameful conditions that remove restrictions on capital that flow freely from global south to tax havens run by the richest IMF member states. And along with austerity and preferential treatment of the global rich corporation, it's really no surprise to see capital primarily flowing from the poor nations to the richer ones and that IMF conditional loans and further rounds of finance, is what systematically drives them into debt traps for the last 4 decades. Allegations have been made because the IMF and World Bank has actually used indebtedness to extract political leverage. As when the economy goes bad but debts needs to be repaid. The country typically has to go to the IMF for a bailout despite the IMF conditions for that debt, as well as the bailout, is what leads to increased poverty rates and lower economic growth and a vicious cycle. In this view, China is the only major alternative where global south countries can borrow from, without needing conditions. And they can choose how much to borrow and are not forced. It's offensive to imply they don't know how much to borrow but at least they have an option to escape IMF austerity and choose their own policies. And the parties with a well documented history of repeatedly exploiting debt traps to force policies is the IMF and World Bank and to not mention them in an article that is generally about exploiting debt. But give so much estate to mention Chinese cases where one is really using a Crystal Ball to predict it will occur, but hasn't. That would be not WP:NPOV.

The WB and the IMF have systematically made loans to States as a means of influencing their policies. Foreign indebtedness has been and continues to be used as an instrument for subordinating the borrowers | (The World Bank: a never-ending coup d’état. The hidden agenda of the Washington Consensus, Mumbai: Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, 2007)

KirklandWayne (talk) 09:56, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

To quote directly from WP:NPOV,

Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without editorial bias. (emphasis mine)

Sometimes this is a frustrating endeavor, to put it lightly, if you personally don't have much respect for how an issue has been framed in the available source material. In that case, though, the right thing to do is to go off Wikipedia into the rest of the world and try to change people's views. If you get far enough, the relevant Wikipedia articles should follow.

Since it sounds like you're concerned about how the article should define "debt-trap diplomacy," let's take a look at a few definitions of debt-trap diplomacy in the sources. Here's one from Current History:

Some critics claim that China is using "debt trap diplomacy"—collateralizing loans with resource revenues or taking control of infrastructure projects after repayment difficulties—to gain strategic footholds, especially in Asia and Africa.

The Associated Press:

China has also pushed back on the idea, popularized in the Trump administration, that it has engaged in “debt trap diplomacy,” leaving countries saddled with loans they cannot afford so that it can seize ports, mines and other strategic assets.

Chellaney himself, who introduced the idea:

China's debt-trap diplomacy, redolent of colonial-era practices, has claimed its latest victim -- the small, resource-rich nation of Laos. Struggling to pay back Chinese loans, Laos has handed China majority control of its national electric grid at a time when its state-owned electricity company's debt has spiraled to 26% of its gross domestic product...Beijing's power to dim all lights in Laos leaves little wiggle room for its tiny neighbor, already reeling under its staggering debt obligations...What makes some nations sink deeper into Chinese debt, despite the risks of mortgaging their foreign-policy autonomy to Beijing?

Given all this, I feel the opening paragraph in the lead rather misleads people (:P) about the precise way the phrase "debt-trap diplomacy" has actually been used in the published political discourse, and I do indeed worry that it's giving editors that newly arrive on this article the wrong idea. It's not just about extending loans to countries "partially, or solely, to increase the lender's political leverage" as the lead currently says. You can see that it's specifically about the concept (whether true or not) of China "collateralizing loans" to "take control of infrastructure projects" or "other strategic assets," leading to borrower countries "mortgaging their foreign-policy autonomy to Beijing" in a manner "redolent of colonial-era practices".

The whole conversation in the academic and popular press has been all about that idea specifically. Whether people have argued that it's a genuine problem, a fake idea, a half-truth, a distraction, or anything else, that's always the topic of discussion, so we're obligated to use that framing. Even if we personally find the whole conversation tiresome, or even intellectually dishonest, we have to put our own feelings aside in our role as Wikipedia editors and follow the sources.

There's no intrinsic reason why the article has to focus on China for all time or anything, but China should naturally feature in the discussion here at this point in history just because that's all that people seem to have ever referred to when they say "debt-trap diplomacy" in the published political discourse. If you can find a reliable source that actually talks about "debt-trap diplomacy" specifically (not just "debt trap") in regards to a country other than China, I would almost certainly support its use here; I just haven't come across one yet.

The only reason I haven't already tried to change the lead is because the lead should summarize the body of the article, and I don't think the article itself really makes all this clear. It sort of does but there's a lot of places where it gets off-track, and if we're going to change the lead, we ought to tighten up the rest of the article too. So, I'm here advocating for tightening up the entire article. There's a story to the phrase "debt-trap diplomacy" that's getting lost in the noise, and it would come through if we would put aside our preconceptions and start from the sources themselves. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 01:42, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Lead in the article defines it as predatory lending and using debts for political leverage. If you are going to use that as a definition then you should understand that accusations "debt trap" and "predatory lending for political gains" is synonymous. Originally as LilAhok had noted in talk discussion above, The Debt Trap: The IMF and the Third World by Cheryl Payer was published in 1975. It is called a debt trap in the old days. But after 2017, a new term has come up but has the meaning is the same. So you can't both claim the word itself now means a general systematic exploitation of debts and then use mental gymnastics to also claim that IMF doesn't qualify because despite it's being accused of the very same action defined in the article lead, [5] people only say systematic predatory lending and debt trap accusations about IMF. The difference between them is too arbitrary. So I reiterate either note in the article introduction to be clear that it doesn't refer to allegations made towards IMF for systematically pushing countries into debt trap and exploiting them and this is specifically for China only. Or keep status quo. But is just not neutral to present the term in lead of article as generally about any country or institution pushing poor countries to debt and then exploiting that debt trap, and exclude the very parties that, in comparison to Chinese lending, have also had allegations of pushing poor countries into debt trap and systematically extracting political power when those countries default.KirklandWayne (talk) 08:32, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

"if we would put aside our preconceptions and start from the sources themselves. 🍉" I am trying to understand your view and seem like someone who really cares for this article in good faith but I do think the sources themselves are an issue as many are more propaganda than showing evidence that China is guilty of it. I know news like AP and NYT have pushed Iraqi WMD style disinformation but have also made certain corrections later on. A lot of disinfo was made in the early years of 2017 and 2018, and it be a grave error to present whatever news say then, with too much weight and have a higher ratio to more recent content that inevitably emerged to disproves the narrative with quality studies, that was absent in the early years.

If you are advocating for tightening up the entire article, you should be reducing and trimming the large amount of unsubstantiated chapters that insist China is committing debt trap diplomacy in Africa, and irrelevant unrelated remarks about bribery in the Pacific islands. it may had been acceptable to make large volumes of content to accuse China of doing debt trap diplomacy in Africa back in the early days of 2017. But in 2023, when there's increasingly more evidence to disprove the allegations, then the article really shouldn't have a mega sized volume of filler content, when major outlets like Bloomberg have to admit the allegations are overblown and without factual basis.

In fact there is not a single information in any of those chapters that proves debt trap diplomacy after all these years and should be trimmed if it is not relevant proof. KirklandWayne (talk) 08:35, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

I think we're talking past each other a bit, maybe. I emphatically don't support the definition used in the first paragraph of the lead as I think it's too general. If this article was just about countries being trapped in debt, it could have been created long before 2017, because as you say that concept is far older and accusations about that have been levelled at many other actors aside from China. However, this article was created specifically to document the political discourse around Chellaney's 2017 thesis, which is why it's called "Debt-trap diplomacy" and not merely "Sovereign debt trap" or something like that.

It's not our place to say whether AP or NYT is publishing disinformation or propaganda. They may be, and certainly they've been wrong in the past as you say, but there's a wide consensus on Wikipedia that those are trusted sources as you can see on the Perennial sources page. If we have other reliable sources that make claims like that towards their articles on this topic, we can cite them as well, but we can't ourselves take sides. As WP:NPOV says, "Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them. The aim is to inform, not influence."

To me, the main things in this article that are filler are things that have no direct bearing on the "debt-trap diplomacy" conversation. The "IMF and World Bank" section reads that way to me, as do some of the passages that just talk about Chinese lending or the BRI without really bringing up anything about "debt-trap diplomacy" per se. I also feel like a lot of the article reads in a rather rambling and hard-to-follow fashion at present even where the information is relevant, because so much of it is just long lists of studies and news articles added by different people over the years without much effort to give it a larger sense of flow or show what interactions and commonalities exist between the sources. I'm gradually trying to do something about those issues.

Likewise, even if some of the material published in 2017–18 seems misguided today, we should definitely still describe it here because it's part of the story. I keep trying to emphasize that perspective because I really think that's part of what this article needs to be more comprehensible to a reader. To the extent that such material is out there, the reader will understand that the political consensus is now against it if we frame things more chronologically, which I really think would help in places.

On that note, I do actually agree that, at this point, the overall consensus in the political discourse seems to be that Chellaney was off the mark in various ways. The article should reflect that, for sure, and it naturally will if we just focus on summarizing everything in a proportional and well-ordered fashion. At the same time, it's still not our place to say outright in wikivoice that he was wrong or that his thesis has no basis. We have to let the sources speak for themselves—when they say he's wrong, we can report that they say that, but we need to stay above the debate ourselves. It's not a self-evident matter like water being wet; it's a complicated and highly controversial political issue and we have to handle it accordingly. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 09:28, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think I need to tell you that trusted sources doesn't mean they are 100 percent correct. Older sources had used to quote Sri Lanka's port as being forced to be ceded to China and they quoted Brahma. They were incorrect to do so despite being major outlets. But I do appreciate you taking the time to reply to me so quickly. So owe you the courtesy to tell I likely will not respond back promptly for the rest of the year as have certain affairs in real world to really focus on.

And if you really care about integrity of Wikipedia and for the article. Then I leave you with what I had said yesterday, that Wikipedia should not be a page that predicts the future, and use a crystal ball to predict things that have not happened. Turns out there's a page dedicated to that. WP:NOTCRYSTAL Yet the article today exemplify the wp:crystalball problem where it often repeats false claims made by Braham with a very high ratio, where it generates undue bias to that specific point-of-view when you quote him so much. He is the one who started an unprofessional myth that claimed that China forced Sri Lanka to give up a port in exchange for cancelling a billion dollars in Chinese debts which Sri Lanka couldn't pay. He was proven wrong at so many levels.

So as an editor, you should ideally fact check his quotes before adding it in. An example is quoting him say, "When a new government took power, Sri Lanka was on the "brink of default" and the new government had no choice but "to turn around and embrace China again". But that's a very easily disproven opinion, considering Sri Lanka can turn to the IMF anytime, but chose not to.

Some friendly advice is that you had quoted Braham above saying that China doesn't check borrower's ability to pay back. That overgeneralization don't pass the pub test as there's always risk in lending. But China is also proven to assess creditworthiness of Pacific islands, as well as having signed up to G20 guidelines guidelines on financing and have a debt sustainability framework that is virtually identical to the IMF's framework. It shows this Chellaney's overgeneralization as something that should not be in the article for many reasons, even if the major outlets quote him.

So the article really should not be quoting Chellaney given he has a propensity to make up significant propagandistic errors that he helped make famous. People now believe Sri Lanka Port was a debt to equity swap thanks to him alone. But I appreciate your fast reply and when you say reader will understand that the political consensus is now against it if we frame things more chronologically, which I really think would help in places. I hope you can do just that.

As for IMF, maybe a suggestion is that to put in lede that whenever the media uses the term of debt trap diplomacy, they are only referring to Chinese lending. They do not use the same term when criticizing the IMF of predatory lending and debt trap. It's a true distinction and a more accurate lede.KirklandWayne (talk) 10:29, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

References

scope of the article

There have been discussions, not just recently, about whether it should cover debt-trap, debt-trap diplomacy, or both. What are the pros and cons? CurryCity (talk) 20:45, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Overall, the article suffers from a conceptual problem. The "debt-trap diplomacy" usage was coined, or at least popularized, with regard to China's lending. However, the underlying hypothesis has not been supported as to China. To borrow language from some of the academic sources, the idea of Chinese debt-trap diplomacy is a "myth." Our result here is an article based on an unsupported hypothesis which consequently means a great deal of information is spent rebutting or showing how the hypothesis has not been borne out.

One way to address this problem is through the examples of IMF debt traps and the like, and to interpret the scope of the article more broadly to address sovereign "debt traps." This is preferable to requiring the word "diplomacy" also, which would likely result in a too-narrow focus on the Chinese case (ironically, where concerns of "debt-trap diplomacy" have been shown to be wrong or unsubstantiated). We do not wish to place undue emphasis on a marginal theory, after all. JArthur1984 (talk) 21:01, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

It's called "Debt-trap diplomacy". That means something really specific in the published material we have that uses it, much more specific than "debt trap". It's not our place to consider the pros and cons of one or the other framing—we have to stick to how the sources frame it. There are other articles about just "debt trap", such as debt crisis and predatory lending. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 16:09, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm thinking about the pros and cons of the scope. There have been arguments over including or excluding non-diplomacy debt-trap, which should all go into other articles if I understand you. CurryCity (talk) 05:24, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

As far as I am aware. In order for ANY entity to take over another entity there must be some form of tribunal or court that instructs both parties that the asset is being seized/ taken from one and given to the other. What's been printed as so called mostly opinionated "journalism" has NEVER referenced any court of law anywhere in the world that I've seen to indicate an asset in Africa or Sri Lanka or anywhere else has been surrendered. Sri Lanka ofcourse was a 99 year-land lease no different than the USA's land-lease in Panama for the canal. Or UK's of Kowloon/Hong Kong or again USA's Guantanamo Bay in Cuba which is also a leased bit of land. Given it hasn't happend Debt Trap is still just a theory.

Trinidad and Tobago's new finance minister just today (11 November 2023) said the same as the predecessor. The loans from China are *still* the lowest he's seen out there. And then he explained how much of T&T's debt was owned by China to stop the fake new press from jumping all over it. (link) -- CaribDigita (talk) 01:40, 12 November 2023 (UTC)

The lead

I was thinking before that it made sense to wait to do anything with the lead until more of the rest of the article had congealed more thoroughly (if that makes sense :P). At this point, though, since the lead seems like it keeps being a focus of conflict and confusion and so on, I'm putting forward the version I just put in place as a reasonable summary of what I think the article can support right now. I know there are a lot of editors, it seems like at least, that really want it to say in very strong terms that DTD has been totally rebutted and no one sticks to it anymore at all and that sort of thing. I really don't feel like the rest of the article supports that stance at present, at least not so strongly—there are certainly some commentators that have disputed various parts of the idea since it first came around, and at this current time in history I do think there's support for the idea that a bulk of commentators have sided against at least the idea that the BRI has had some sort of secret malicious overarching plan behind it. That's not quite the same as it being totally rebutted universally, and there are still very contemporary news stories that are more written more in line with Chellaney's framing (e.g. this one), so it's really not like the idea has been totally abandoned in the political discourse or anything.

I think it's possible that as the article becomes more highly organized, there might be room to state in the lead that the preponderance of experts is against it at least in certain ways, but I don't feel like the rest of the article makes it clear how that should work right now, since most of it doesn't really add up to any strong conclusions in any direction at present kind of. I do feel like there's enough room to state that there's been a lot of controversy, and a lot of people both for and against it in certain ways—that much is obvious from the article at present—so I think we should just stick to that for the time being. I think we should try to develop the rest of the article more before we say anything more certain than that in the lead—there's a lot of existing sources that are still kind of undercharacterized and I've also had an easy time finding relevant sources that still aren't cited anywhere here, so in a way we still have a lot to find out about how this topic actually comes off in what's been published. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 15:48, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Admirable as the effort to improve this is, the current text best provides a false balance through the notion of "widely endorsed and widely rebutted" and through presenting the theory on its terms but not explaining why it has been rebutted. But perhaps it is best to work from a version like this which is less burdened by prior minutiae and reliance on sources that existed at time when there was less evidence to analyze. JArthur1984 (talk) 16:05, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I appreciate your consideration. As far as there being a false balance goes, like I said, I don't the article really bears out the conclusion you're coming to, that it's been absolutely rebutted. Most of the article is just long lists of studies and summaries of news stories and things, and the picture you get is pretty heterogenous. The lead has to follow from the body of the article, and what I wrote there is absolutely borne out by the article, that many people have both endorsed and rebutted DTD. When the article is more developed and pulled-together, maybe it will be clearer how we could say something more specific. Given that, I think we should focus on the rest of the article for now and leave further developing the lead for later. In my opinion, the existing lead is "safe" for now, in that it does at least follow from what the rest of the article says.

Plus, it's not such a black-and-white issue of rebutted or not. There are many ways it can be right or wrong. The most solid case, I think, for an expert consensus against any part of it, is in terms of China's intent. Part of the theory is that the BRI represents a kind of grand malicious plan by the Chinese government, and that I have heard a lot of pushback against especially in more recent writing. People will say that the loans and the results have been too varied for that to be true, and that in any case the countries that are in trouble are in debt to a lot of different sources, not just China, etc. That's not really just like, tossing Chellaney's thesis to the ground absolutely or something—it's kind of just presenting a different picture, not one directly opposed but more just different (and what would "directly opposed" look like anyway? it's a complicated, multifaceted idea). But also, to be honest, I don't feel like I've totally explored the contemporary writing on it yet, and I don't think this article does either, so I think we could easily discover that there's more support for it in some sources today than either of us realize right now. We have to let the sources lead the way. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 16:23, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

You know, actually, to give a specific example, the news article I mentioned before (this one) quotes analysts saying things like, "Laos is so heavily indebted to China that their negotiating position is compromised...It's having to borrow just to service the debt. That's the definition of a debt trap," and, "If you see your country becoming a colony of China, you see a government that is totally corrupt, and you cannot speak up because if you do you might be killed - would you want to stay?" I'm sure Chellaney would see all this as in line with his analysis. At the same time, the comments of the experts in the Associated Press article I've used in a couple places, where they say that the loans have come from dozens of banks and can't all have been coordinated "from the top," doesn't exactly conflict with the framing in that BBC article. Chinese banks didn't have to make loans to Laos with "ill intent" per se for things to have worked out the way that article portrays—perhaps that's more just how things went in practice. You could draw a conclusion from these two stories (not that I would necessarily) that Chellaney was wrong about the "geostrategic plan" part but not about the results, at least where Laos is concerned. Of course, also, in different countries, the situation is really different, so it wouldn't be appropriate to generalize from Laos whatever you might decide is going on there. You can kind of see even just from this why I feel like it's hard to characterize the "overall conclusions" analysts have come to, at least in terms of how the picture we have of the issue so far makes things look. We have to be very careful to avoid WP:SYNTH with something this elaborate (not to mention still-evolving). 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 16:42, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

The source given does not mention debt trap diplomacy at all. There was already a slew of deletions from this article because they failed to mention debt trap in any way. If we are going to represent all sources with a reference to debt trap or rather debt trap related to China, then the article is no longer about debt trap diplomacy but rather a "debt trap" in general or perhaps "debt traps related to China" would be a more accurate title. Qiushufang (talk) 21:22, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I think you are mostly responding to a position that I'm not taking in my edits, so I'm not quite sure how to respond or whether you expect me to. JArthur1984 (talk) 17:06, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I think you're overemphasizing what you see as the "against" side in the lead. How does the existing article support that degree of emphasis on that "strongly against" framing, the one you're taking in the second paragraph? I tried to explain in detail just now why I don't think that's appropriate. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 17:11, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Ah, and I thought this was fairly lukewarm, actually. This is all drawn from sources already discussed in the body and which I identified in my edit summary. Is it the language of "rebuttal" you're focused on? It could say something like "Critics of applying the theory to China point to..." JArthur1984 (talk) 18:23, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Why should we spend a whole paragraph in the lead just summarizing the positions of "critics" in that manner? Is that really better than just saying "it's controversial" right now? I don't see how the text of the article itself supports that degree of emphasis on the "rebbutal" angle. There are sources cited in the article that endorse Chellaney's picture in various ways, as well as material that isn't clearly for or against or is only for or against certain aspects of the theory. I know that at least some recent sources claim that experts have broadly agreed against at least certain aspects of Chellaney's hypothesis, but it's not like the entire article reads as a systematic refutation of everything anyone has ever put under the DTD umbrella. If we were really going to honestly survey all the sources and give an accurate summary of the positions they take in the lead, I think we would need to do a lot more work than just looking at a few sources as representative of the "rebuttal" side and stopping at that, which is why I think we should focus on the rest of the article for now and not try to overcharacterize the debate in the lead at this point. Simply saying "it's controversial" is plainly true. I think anything else, beyond something detailed and nuanced that really properly surveys the whole debate, is going to give readers the wrong impression. 🍉◜⠢◞ↂ🄜𝚎sₒᶜa𝚛🅟ම𛱘‎🥑《 𔑪‎talk〗⇤ 18:57, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

I disagree on the characterization of the article's contents on Chellaney's views. Yes there are supporters but practically none of them are academic studies, where supporting opinions are a distinct minority, and are mostly relegated to political editorials or news sites. Even news sites such as Bloomberg that had ridiculous anti-China articles like the microscopic spy chips claims without any evidence do not support Chellaney's views. Studies and findings since the genesis of the concept in their majority have characterized debt-trap diplomacy as either complicated or outright false. Qiushufang (talk) 20:57, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

a bulk of commentators have sided against at least the idea that the BRI has had some sort of secret malicious overarching plan behind it. That's not quite the same as it being totally rebutted universally

I disagree. Chellaney's perspective, the debt trap diplomacy, and support for it absolutely does necessitate accusations of an overarching malicious plan to increase diplomatic, political, and material power by the Chinese state. Without that aspect, there is no debt trap diplomacy. It has not been rebutted universally, but it is clearly in the majority within academic studies, which the current lead already reflects. Qiushufang (talk) 21:14, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

there might be room to state in the lead that the preponderance of experts is against it at least in certain ways

This seems rather disingenuous. If we are not depending on the expertise of experts and representing their views, then who should we depend on? Wikipedia allows sources regardless of bias but it's obvious that certain sources are more reliable than others, academic publications ideally being one of them, while random political editorials and news sites being a second or third choice in reliability. Qiushufang (talk) 21:19, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Please do not references which do not substantiate debt trap diplomacy

@Amigao:, you have been adding citations which do not substantiate debt trap diplomacy to the article. They are either cases of WP:CRYSTAL saying that such a circumstance could happen in the future, or they only make mention of a "debt trap" in passing, which is not the same as debt-trap diplomacy. Please back up your additions with direct quotations as they are being challenged. Where in the references do they claim that the situation is a debt trap diplomacy case? Qiushufang (talk) 03:07, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, I am talking about this addition. Neither Debt trap nor debt trap diplomacy were mentioned once in the body of the articles. One article says it could become a debt trap while the other one does not mention it at all. The same goes for this addition where it is not mentioned in the body. Note that debt traps and debt trap diplomacy are not the same thing. Qiushufang (talk) 03:18, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

It's fair to say that they are being described as potential debt traps. Amigao (talk) 03:25, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

The economic times article is terrible [6]. The article does not mention any critic. this sounds more like an oped. WSJ doesn't mention the word. WSJ article is a story about a handful of people and their experiences.

Describing it as potential debt trap diplomacy is original research. LilAhok (talk) 08:22, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

WP:OVERCITE - Just read the recent edit. [7]. adding more sources does not improve the quality of the statement. sources are dubious.

WP:ATT if the info is to be included, statements should be attributed. LilAhok (talk) 08:36, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

It also doesn't address that there is a difference between debt trap and debt trap diplomacy and no material has been cited addressing this. Unless @Amigao: can provide a direct quotation substantiating the addition as debt trap diplomacy, it should be removed. Qiushufang (talk) 03:02, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Global Extractivism

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2024 and 3 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sancar27 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: DonJohnson101, Laveah, Salinass22.

— Assignment last updated by Lily.sophia.kate (talk) 21:44, 9 March 2024 (UTC)