China's Superbank: Debt, Oil and Influence - How China Development Bank is Rewriting the Rules of Finance

Preface

Hugo Chávez, resplendent in crisply pressed fatigues and paratrooper boots with red shoelaces, had a very special guest. Meeting him that mid-September day in Caracas was the world’s most powerful banker, who had lent Chávez’s government at least $40 billion over four years, or about $1,400 for every man, woman, and child in Venezuela.

The guest, stooped and looking older than his 66 years, drank chrysanthemum tea, staring across the table at Chávez, bald from his chemotherapy treatments. He handed the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela a 600-page book filled with recommendations on how Chávez should run, manage, and build ports, roads, and railroads.

What bank in this day and age can lend so much money to one of the world’s ...