A Chinese firm bought an insurer for CIA agents - part of Beijing's trillion dollar spending spree

"China has a kind of financial system that the world has never seen," says Victor Shih, director of the 21st Century China Centre at University of California San Diego. China has the largest banking system in the world – larger than the US, Europe and Japan put together, he adds.

That size, along with the amount of control Beijing exerts over state banks, gives it unique capabilities.

"The government controls interest rates and directs where the credit goes," Mr Shih says. "This is only possible with very strict capital control, which no other country could have on a sustainable basis."

Some of the investments in wealthy economies appear to have been made in order to generate a healthy return. Others fall in line with Beijing's strategic objectives, set out a decade ago in a major government initiative called Made in China 2025.

In it the Chinese authorities outlined a clear plan to dominate 10 cutting-edge industries, like robotics, electric vehicles and semiconductors by this year.

Beijing wanted to fund big investments abroad so key technologies could be brought back to China.

China's spending patterns are changing, the AidData database shows, with Beijing's state money flowing to countries that have decided to welcome Chinese investment.

In the Netherlands there's been debate around Nexperia, a troubled Chinese-owned semiconductor company.

It shows up in the AidData database too – Chinese state banks loaned $800m to help a Chinese consortium acquire Nexperia in 2017. Two years later, the ownership passed to another Chinese company - Wingtech.

Nexperia's strategic value was highlighted when the Dutch authorities took control of the company's operations in September - in part, the Dutch government said, over concerns that Nexperia's technology was at risk of being transferred to other parts of the larger Wingtech company.

That bold move had resulted in Nexperia effectively being cut into two – separating Dutch operations from its Chinese manufacturing.