$200B Shock: How US Became China’s Biggest Secret Borrower

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Former Kyrgyz PM Djoomart Otorbaev cites explosive AidData findings revealing that while Washington warned the Global South about “Chinese debt traps,” it quietly took $200B in opaque Chinese financing—much of it tied to critical technologies.

By TRH Foreign Affairs Desk

New Delhi, November 25, 2025 — Former Kyrgyz Republic Prime Minister Djoomart Otorbaev has ignited a fresh global debate after spotlighting a startling new report from AidData that shows the United States—long the loudest critic of China’s “debt trap diplomacy”—has secretly been one of Beijing’s biggest borrowers.

For years, Washington, London and Brussels have warned developing nations, especially in the Global South, about the dangers of Chinese lending. Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port became the poster child of Western lectures urging countries to avoid Chinese financing at all costs.

But according to AidData’s bombshell research, the US quietly borrowed $200 billion from China over 25 years, often through “opaque, off-balance-sheet arrangements” channeled via shell companies registered in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and Delaware.

“China was playing chess while we were all playing checkers,” the report notes.

The revelation slices through years of Western political rhetoric. While warning others of Chinese influence, Western capitals were simultaneously tapping into the same Chinese capital flows—sometimes for the most sensitive sectors of national power.

Otorbaev highlights in a post on LinkedIn that much of this lending targeted firms involved in semiconductors, robotics, biotech, and other critical technologies at the core of US national security. “In 2015, Chinese lenders even financed a $1.2 billion acquisition of an American insurance company tied to US intelligence agencies—a deal that evaded regulators,” he wrote, adding: “A year later, a $150 million Chinese loan helped fund the acquisition of a robotics firm in Michigan.”

But the US was not alone. AidData shows that the UK received $60 billion; EU member states collectively took $161 billion; and even wealthy allies like Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands absorbed significant Chinese financing.

Between 2000 and 2023, China lent more than $2 trillion globally—double previous estimates.

Otorbaev argues that the hypocrisy is glaring. “Western politicians and propagandists,” he writes, “have spent decades warning the Global South about Chinese loans while quietly exploiting the same Chinese capital for their own strategic and economic gain.”

The issue, he notes, was never really about debt traps. It was about control—over narrative, capital flows, and geopolitical influence. China, like any major power, lends to advance its interests. The West does the same. But only one side framed it as a global moral crisis.

The AidData revelations force a fundamental question: If Western leaders knew Chinese money was flowing into their own economies, why condemn developing nations for doing exactly the same?

As the debate over global financing enters a sharper phase, Otorbaev’s intervention exposes what many in the Global South have long suspected: the warnings were never about protecting them—they were about preserving Western dominance in a world where China’s financial reach now touches every major capital.

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