The world’s most vulnerable 75 countries are now facing a “tidal wave of debt repayments and interest costs” to China, the Lowy Institute wrote in a May 26 analysis.

The first undercurrents of their economic troubles began stirring all the way back in 2013 when Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping made a landmark speech. “[W]e should take an innovative approach and jointly build an economic belt along the Silk Road,” Xi said. “This will be a great undertaking, benefiting the people of all countries along the route. To turn this into a reality, we may start with work in individual areas and link them up over time to cover the whole region.”

The project came to be called the Belt and Road Initiative. It was all about building a land-based “belt” made of roads, bridges, railways and electrical grids, as well as a maritime “road” made of many new and enhanced ports in nations across the globe. The purpose, the Chinese said, was to allow a better flow of trade between China and numerous other nations.

Xi and his colleagues in the Chinese Communist Party persuaded the leaders of more than 140 countries to sign on to the plan. Most were eager for a chance to see their nation’s sails filled so they could ride the Chinese tide and be better connected to global trade. After a country agreed to join, the Chinese would arrive with blueprints, project managers, survey teams, construction crews and something else: loan contracts.

The loans were generally given through China Exim Bank or China Development Bank. They ranged from a few million dollars for some countries to tens of billions for others. The surge of loans turned China from a small-scale international lender to the world’s biggest source of new bilateral credit for developing nations. In 2016, China lent more than all Western nations combined. The leaders of the borrowing nations generally viewed the loans as sound investments—certain they would generate enough wealth for their country so that they could be repaid with relative ease.

But 12 years into the Belt and Road Initiative, it is clear that swells of destruction have long been building beneath the surface. It is now clear that the loans were structured in ways that were almost guaranteed to overburden the borrowing nations. And with the Chinese economy now in a downturn, Xi Jinping is eager to collect. “Now, and for the rest of this decade,” the report states, “China will be more debt collector than banker to the developing world.”

The report details how the “tidal wave” that the poorest 75 nations now face equals $22 billion. This tsunami, it says, “will hit hardest the poorest and most vulnerable countries.”

And since European lenders are increasingly distracted by Russian aggression, and the United States is increasingly isolationist and erratic, there couldn’t be a worse time for the wave to be crashing over them. “China’s lending has collapsed exactly when it is needed most, instead creating large net financial outflows when countries are already under intense economic pressure,” the report says.

Many of these nations are already underwater and unlikely to be able to repay what they owe. Laos’s public debt has hit 116 percent of its gross domestic product. Zambia’s stands at 105 percent. Pakistan’s is 80 percent and Kenya’s is 70. Dozens of other nations are in equally treacherous currents.

So what happens if the Chinese come into their ports with open ledgers and these countries can’t pay up?

For the chilling answer, we can look to Sri Lanka.

After Xi announced the Belt and Road Initiative, Sri Lanka was among the most enthusiastic nations to welcome China’s quick cash. It accepted billions of dollars in loans for such projects as the Rajapaksa Port in Hambantota. This port is at a key location for the maritime “road” part of China’s Belt and Road. But for the Sri Lankan economy, the project was a bust. Rather than causing a surge in growth, the port (and other Chinese-funded infrastructure projects) plunged Sri Lanka deeply into unsustainable debt.

By 2016, one third of Sri Lanka’s total government revenue was going toward servicing Chinese loans, and the country was forced to request debt relief with the International Monetary Fund. From there, the situation only got more turbulent.

As pressure intensified and options narrowed, Sri Lanka’s government decided the only course of action was to hand China a controlling stake in the Rajapaksa Port for 99 years. The transfer set off alarms in Sri Lanka and beyond because it represented a Chinese victory with major military implications. “The acquisition provided Beijing with a deepwater port in the region in which it can dock its navy, off the coast of its key regional competitor, India,” Foreign Policy wrote on Oct. 29, 2018.

Laos is another nation that has been battered by the massive waves of debt owed to China. In 2020, unable to service its loans, Laos agreed to give China’s state-owned China Southern Power Grid Co. majority control over Laos’s extremely valuable electricity-exporting electrical grid. Ever since, China has been positioned to determine who buys the electricity Laos’s rivers generate and at what price. This translates to greater influence for the Chinese over all of Southeast Asia.

The Chinese deny that they intentionally set a “debt trap” for Sri Lanka, Laos or any other Belt and Road nation. But it is undeniable that the way it has progressed China has been able to extract geopolitical concessions, take national assets and gain considerable strategic advantage in some of these nations. And with the tidal wave of debt now cresting, many more countries could soon be swept away.

For the peoples of Sri Lanka, Kenya, Laos, Pakistan, Zambia and dozens of other countries, this equates to a major loss, bringing their nations closer to becoming vassals to China. For the Chinese Communist Party, this is a massive victory.

“China wants to avoid the impression that it is sinking its dragon claws into other countries,” said Lu Xiankun, senior research fellow at the Shanghai Center for Global Trade and Economic Governance, during a 2016 imd Discovery Event. But as the Belt and Road loans dry up and the Chinese come to collect, it is becoming clear that for many nations that is essentially what is happening.

This trend is crucial to watch because Bible prophecy tells us that in the “end time,” the world would enter an age called “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24).

The term “Gentile” here refers to peoples who do not descend from ancient Israel. The countries that do descend from Israel include America, Great Britain and the Jewish nation today called Israel, which you can understand by ordering your free copy of The United States and Britain in Prophecy.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, Britain and then the United States used their global power to bring comparative stability to much of the world. But now the era of Israelite leadership is over, and the tides of global power are shifting instead to “Gentile” nations.

In the October 2023 Trumpet issue, editor in chief Gerald Flurry explained that the main powers in “the times of the Gentiles” are a European bloc led by Germany, a Middle Eastern alliance led by Iran, and a great Asian confederacy led by Russia and China.

“We are deep into the times of the Gentiles already,” he wrote. “You can see it happening. Look at Iran. Look at Europe especially, and at Asia. The times of the Israelite powers are over!”

The fact that mankind has now entered the times of the Gentiles is a huge event. And one area where we can see clear evidence of it is in the Belt and Road and the way it is giving China dramatic power over numerous developing nations. All the ports, railways, roads, bridges, banks and other projects are helping to shift the tides of global power away from Israelite nations such as America and toward Gentile nations such as China. All the economic power China is acquiring is being translated into military power.

“At the broadest level, economic strength is critical for military strength,” wrote Carolyn Bartholomew, chairman of the Congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. “China is channeling its economic strength into rising political influence and military power around the world at a time when other countries perceive that the U.S. is in retreat.”

Mr. Flurry wrote that although this shift in the tides of global power is deeply alarming, it is connected to very good news. To understand more about China’s rise and the hope that is intimately tied to it, read “World Leaders Who No Longer Have a Human Mind.”