Existing studies on the political effects of China’s development finance overseas have predominantly focused on the positive aspects, highlighting how China cultivated goodwill and political influence in other countries. However, the political effects of China’s development projects could be multifaceted. This study examines when China’s development projects paradoxically hedge on China’s diplomatic standing in recipient countries. This research argues that Chinese-funded development projects overseas generate both political assets and political liabilities within domestic coalitional politics. Liabilities remain latent until triggered by government transitions. When the recipient country has a new government in office, the greater the accumulated scale of China-backed ongoing projects is, the more remarkable the backfire effects on China's influence are, as the ongoing projects, not finished ones or committed ones, fuel the motivation and empower capabilities of the new government to hedge on China's influence. By assembling a dataset (2000–2023) combining UN General Assembly ideal-point estimates, AidData’s TUFF project-level records, and a newly coded measure of government transitions from 2000 to 2023, a time–series cross-sectional analysis demonstrates that ongoing Chinese development projects systematically reduce diplomatic convergence under stable governments, yet significantly erode alignment with China when a government transition occurs. The findings reveal a reversed pathway of influence: China’s most visible development engagements heighten its vulnerability to political cycles abroad. This study contributes to research on great-power statecraft, foreign aid, and the domestic foundations of foreign policy by demonstrating how minor powers can leverage domestic transitions to renegotiate asymmetric relationships with major donors.