There has been a widespread concern over China using the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to pursue ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ (DTD). This study examines China’s rhetorical counter to DTD. To that end, it draws insights from counterframing and blame avoidance and dissects a corpus of Chinese official documents. To challenge the DTD frame, China proffered two counterframes: scapegoat and force for good. Upon unpacking them into frame elements, the analysis uncovered China’s recourse to six blame-avoiding strategies: attacking blame-attributors, shifting blame to others, invoking mitigating circumstances, foregrounding the positive while backgrounding the negative, stressing China’s benevolence, and appealing to the imperative of development. This study contributes to the debates about the BRI and Chinese overseas lending and the study of China’s international blame management.