Chinese development finance in the South Caucasus has had mixed results, often benefiting Chinese lenders and businesses more than their hosts. For borrowers to maximize returns, they should focus more on their own domestic needs. So says a new analysis of 17 years of Chinese spending by Katja Kalkschmied, an economist at the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany. Kalkschmied’s study is timely. Azerbaijan and Georgia are critical to the Middle Corridor – a land route from China to southern Europe – that has become newly strategic as the West avoids doing business with Russia. “The potential functi…