From reading the article, it seems he would have already filed bankruptcy before the Chinese construction company stepped in, and decided to take the free money

From reading the article, it seems he would have already filed bankruptcy before the Chinese construction company stepped in, and decided to take the free money and hoping it'll salvage his sunk investment. The construction company pulled their strings with EXIM to get him the loan, and probably didn't want to get screwed, so they put in that clause. In the end, this guy didn't lose much extra (the 900 mil is already sunk), and EXIM basically gave 2.45B to the construction firm minus materials and any project management expenses. This is all too typical in China, everybody wins, except the tax payers.