"You're going to have countries that are going to be applying for IMF and World Bank funding, and then they're going to be looking to China for that funding too," the German Marshall Fund senior fellow Jonathan Katz said. "And we really have to be careful that these multilateral institutions aren't used to pay off bad Chinese loans."

That could be a windfall for China's Belt and Road Initiative, which U.S. officials regard as a predatory loan program designed to purchase influence and even sovereignty in strategically significant locations. The economic paralysis brought on by the pandemic presents both risks and opportunities for Beijing, which by turns, could lose additional money through the crisis or tighten its grip on debtor nations.