This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 75%. (I'm a bot)

> China has agreed to loan Pakistan $700m to help it weather its worst economic crisis in a generation, in a development that will intensify concern among western countries about cash-strapped Islamabad's debt burden to Beijing.

> China is wary of taking such a step because of the precedent it would set to its other debtors, says Andrew Small, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and author of a book on China and Pakistan.

> Small also noted China might be more willing to support Pakistan than other debtors, because it "Needs a strong, capable Pakistan, to continue to function as an effective counterbalance to India."It's important that they're not seen to let Pakistan down, because if they let Pakistan down in this situation, then the message to everyone else is that they can't be relied on.

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