China and Chinese commercial banks held about 30% of Pakistan's total external debt of about $100 billion, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund released in September last year.
Much of that debt has come under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative.
Cholett said Washington was talking to Islamabad about the "perils" of a closer relationship with Beijing, but would not ask Pakistan to choose between the United States and China. Relations between Islamabad and Washington had turned frosty over the war in Afghanistan, but there has been a thaw in recent months, with an increasing number of high-level visits. Officials from China and the United States will be part of a multi-country meeting of a new sovereign debt roundtable on Friday.
G7 and multilateral lending institutions have long pushed for broad efforts to deliver debt relief to heavily indebted nations to help them avoid cuts in social services that could spur social unrest. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other G7 officials see China, now the world's largest sovereign creditor, as a key stumbling block in debt-relief efforts.
Chollet said the U.S. was working with Pakistan to navigate through the current crisis. (Reporting by Gibran Peshimam Editing by Bernadette Baum)
