China’s Defaulted War Debts

We’ve long viewed China’s defaulted debt from the first half of the twentieth century through the lens of the communist government refusing to pay back the defaulted debts of Imperial China. But historian Elya Zhang’s wonderful work on China’s debts documents how the story is much more complex and, in particular, how the Imperial debt is but a sliver of the Chinese sovereign borrowing that was subsequently defaulted on. Much of it, it turns out, was war related borrowing of various types done during the 1938-49 period. And the stories underlying what happened are, as Elya tells us, are fascinating.

Producer: Leanna Doty