The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated the debt problem that was already weighing down the world’s poorer countries. In response, richer countries, meeting in the Group of 20 forum in 2020, created a coordinated plan for debt relief called the Common Framework. It was designed to reflect a new reality: that China now lends far more to developing countries than the mostly Western nations of the Paris Club, the body that had overseen international debt negotiations for decades. As 2023 ended, the Commo
