Shahar Hameiri

🚨 NEW ISSUE 🚨

🌏 Special section on how the rise of Asia reshapes international financial affairs
🗣️ Articles on ghosting diplomacy, ASEAN and human rights, India's China strategy and more
🤝 Policy paper on China and 'America First'
📚 25 book reviews

Read the issue > academic.oup.com/ia/issue/101/5

This, in turn, reflects China's own international financial subordination, as noted previously by authors like
@iliasalami.bsky.social. In Sri Lanka's case, once access to bond markets was lost, the govt defaulted on its external debt, including to Chinese lenders. 7/7

Borrowing from China thus plays a role in driving up debtors' borrowings on international bond markets, which increases their vulnerability to shifts in monetary policy in the US, rather than lessen it. 6/

Second, rather than Chinese lending rescuing borrowers from the vagaries of financial markets, in reality Chinese loans create demand for US$, needed to repay these loans. 5/

First, from the point of view of borrowing governments, Chinese loans and international sovereign bonds are complementary, not competing, sources of financing, that are being deployed for different political purposes. 4/

In this article, we examine the pivotal case of Sri Lanka, the 'poster-child' for the debt-trap diplomacy thesis, whose default in 2022 kicked off a blame game between creditors. We make two interrelated arguments. 3/

China is often seen to offer borrowers in the global south an alternative model for development, contrasted with the West's neoliberal model, notably sovereign borrowing on bond markets. 2/

NEW #openaccess Article: published in International Affairs: 'Competing or complementary: Chinese loans and international bonds in Sri Lanka's default', co-authored with Umesh Moramudali. academic.oup.com/ia/article/1... 1/

Call for Papers: 2026 AIPEN Workshop: The International Political Economy in the Second Cold War - Progress in Political Economy (PPE) After decades of deepening economic integration, the world economy is increasingly challenged by rising geopolitical and geoeconomic rivalry, notably, but not only, between the United States and China...

I am thrilled to announce the call for papers for the 16th AIPEN meeting at the University of Queensland, 5-6 Feb 2026. Full details in the link. Please share among your networks. www.ppesydney.net/call-for-pap...

New (open access!) paper out now with Eric Helleiner and Hongying Wang in New Political Economy:

"A less reluctant (green) Atlas? Explaining the People’s Bank of China’s distinctive environmental shift"

1/ A brief thread 🧵

doi.org/10.1080/1356...

On the recent challenges to the foundations of dollar hegemony from Stephen Miran to Donald Trump by Madison Cartwright
@mkonings.bsky.social @shaharhameiri.bsky.social @tomchodor.bsky.social

www.ppesydney.net/trump-versus...

Trump’s Tariff Gamble and the Decay of the Neoliberal Order - American Affairs Journal What meaning—if any—can we discern in President Trump’s decisions to impose, and then pause, tariffs on the entire world? And what does this mean for the future of world order? At the time of writing,...

If you're going to read just one piece about Trump's tariffs, make it this one.

americanaffairsjournal.org/2025/05/trum...

Trump’s USAID cuts only accelerate the West’s miserly convergence with China The gutting of USAID reflects a wider trend away from foreign aid that is not fuelled by self-interest.

New: LeeJones and I authored a short piece for East Asia Forum on development financing's miserly convergence, based on our article in Development and Change. eastasiaforum.org/2025/05/11/t...

Great news! This article is now available #OpenAccess. Check it out: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

That what happens when you're trying to implement sweeping tariffs in a highly financialised and still integrated economy.

But they push back when serious cuts to net present value or face value are at stake, often in ways that undermine China's overall diplomatic and geopolitical imperatives. 12/12

These creditors are concerned to protect their balance sheets above all else. Hence they cooperate where they can, typically agreeing to reschedule debt and offer grace periods. 11/

We explain how its domestic governance of development financing and debt restructuring negotiations operates and show that the main interests shaping Chinese negotiations over sov debt have been of its mammoth policy banks - the China Exim Bank and the China Development Bank. 10/

In the article we explain this incoherent behaviour by using the analytic framework we developed in our book Fractured China. We argue that China is not necessarily a strategising top-down monolith. www.cambridge.org/core/books/f... 9/

China, international competition and the stalemate in sovereign debt restructuring: beyond geopolitics Using a political economy perspective, this article argues that the rapid expansion in Chinese lending to sovereign borrowers was motivated mainly by comme

They have insisted on comparability of treatment, especially with private creditors, even more than the Paris Club members. As a result debt restructuring processes have become longer and more contested than they had been for some time. academic.oup.com/ia/article/1... 8/

It has not sprung the supposed 'debt trap' on distressed debtors and hasn't used debt restructuring to win friends by showing generosity. In fact, Chinese creditors have often been most reluctant to provide generous debt restructuring deals. 7/

Alongside these challenges, however, there is evidence of some Chinese cooperation with the IMF and Paris Club, notably via G20 initiatives. China's behaviour in debt restructuring also doesn't make sense from any established geostrategic point of view: 6/

These challenges are often claimed to be part of China's wider challenge to the US-led order of which the IMF is a core pillar. 5/

and (c) its refusal to join the Paris Club of creditor countries and its rejection of the Club's norms of transparency among creditors, collective bargaining with debtor countries and comparability of treatment among creditors. 4/

The article examines the challenge that China poses for international efforts to address sovereign debt distress: (a) its 'rescue' lending that competes with the IMF (b) its challenge to the established debt analysis and restructuring framework of the IMF and World Bank; 3/

Many developing countries have been experiencing serious debt distress in recent years due to the pandemic response and rising interest rates in the US in particular. The danger of a bigger sovereign debt crisis is far from over. 2/

Explaining china’s approach to the global governance of sovereign debt distress: a state transformation analysis The global governance of sovereign debt distress is widely understood to be under threat from China, which has risen to become the world’s largest official bilateral creditor. In response to the Gl...

NEW: Lee Jones and I have a new article out in
@ripejournal.bsky.social, 'Explaining China's approach to the global governance of sovereign debt distress: a state transformation approach'. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 1/

Apply to come work with us! @campolis.bsky.social
Assistant Professor in Development Studies (Fixed Term)
www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/50918/

China won't be replacing US aid in Africa or anywhere that easily. Overall, China has been in retrenchment mode for a while, and while some anecdotal evidence could emerge of China moving in to capitalise on US retreat this needs to be put in perspective. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

International Development Financing in the Second Cold War: The Miserly Convergence of Western Donors and China China's rise as a major development financing provider is widely seen as challenging traditional donor states’ influence over the norms and institutions of global development and over aid recipients....

With the slashing of USAID, this article in @devandchg.bsky.social is very timely:

By @shaharhameiri.bsky.social & Lee Jones

"This article supports the convergence thesis but argues ... this convergence is on a less generous middle ground ... both sides are retrenching."