This working paper analyses the evolution of China’s role in international development finance and explores how that role might develop over the next five years. China's rise as one of the world economy’s leading trading nations over the past 25 years has been extensively analysed. The growth and persistence of unprecedented global financial imbalances—reflecting in part the so-called “China shock” to the world trading system—is also well documented. China’s emergence in more recent years as the single largest bilateral official lender to developing country sovereigns under the auspices of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has also been the subject of detailed academic and policy research. […]