Where Data Tells the Story
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Russia, Iran, and Venezuela owe China a combined $310.1 billion, representing 30.1% of the $1.031 trillion in Chinese debt tracked across 30 countries.
All three countries operate under comprehensive Western sanctions that restrict their access to dollar-denominated financing and Western capital markets, making China an important source of external financing.
The visualization above shows the top 30 countries heavily indebted to China.
This is based on data obtained from the World Bank, accessed through Yahoo Finance.
Russia leads the 30-country ranking with $169.3 billion in debt to China, followed by Venezuela at $112.8 billion. Iran ranks 20th with $28 billion, and it has a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement with Beijing signed in 2021.
For China, sanctioned economies represent borrowers with few alternative sources of financing, potentially giving Beijing greater leverage over both the terms of its lending and the borrowers’ dependence on Chinese capital.
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