Neoclassical economics teach that for developing countries to become rich and transition into high income countries, they have to open up their domestic market so foreign direct investments can throw their money into and help develop your economy. Taking IMF loans is actually good and working hard to pay back your debt is a sign that you’re being responsible and credit worthy for foreign investors.

This is not just a China problem, but for many countries in the Global South. The Chicago school has forged itself as the mainstream brand of economics and has succeeded in exported its ideology to the entire Global South by training top students who went to study in the top economics and business schools in America and brought those ideology back to their countries.

The alternative viewpoint is from Marxist and heterodox economics like MMT that say you should not open yourself up to IMF and foreign loans, but instead work on self-sufficiency in agricultural and energy sector (which would include cooperation with neighboring countries such as forming a regional bloc among African and Asian countries, for example).

Of course this is easier said than done when US imperialist policies is to use its global institutions like the World Bank, the IMF and GATT (WTO) to force poor developing countries into opening up their domestic markets so foreign capital can come in and entrench itself within the economy, such that when the time comes, they can threaten to uproot your entire economy so your country become ever more dependent on the will of foreign imperialist powers.

As an example, ASEAN is a regional economic bloc for the ten Southeast Asian countries. To disrupt their independence, Agent Soros was activated and launched a speculative attack on the Thai central bank, and resulted in the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 during which many countries (including Russia!) defaulted and had to take IMF loans to save their economies. Mission accomplished. This is just an average example of how Western imperialism fucks with the Global South.

Ironically, Malaysia was one of the few countries that did not take the IMF loans during the Asian Financial Crisis. The current Prime Minister Anwar who is big on joining BRICS, was also a fervent neoliberal supported by the NED who pushed for taking the IMF loan in 1997 as the Deputy Prime Minister. He was then immediately persecuted and imprisoned for conducting sodomy by the Prime Minister of the time, Mahathir, leader of the far right Malay ethnosupremacist party whose anti-Semitism led him to firmly believe that the “IMF is a tool of Jewish cabal” to control their economy. Asian politics can be wild.