Belt and Road Initiative not a debt trap, has helped partners grow faster: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks during a press conference on the sidelines of China's National People's Congress in Beijing, China on March 8, 2019.

BEIJING - Beijing has once again rejected assertions that its Belt and Road Initiative is a form of debt-trap diplomacy or a geopolitical tool to expand China's influence, pointing out that participant countries develop at a faster pace and have received real benefits.

The response came a day after Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had warned the Philippines against becoming too indebted to China.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi countered such viewpoints on Friday (March by pointing to various infrastructure projects under the BRI partner countries - including the first motorway in East Africa, a railway tunnel through deep mountains in Kazakhstan and the ongoing effort to build a high-speed rail network in Southeast Asia.


"Facts like these are proof that the BRI is not a debt trap that come countries may fall into, but an economic pie that benefits the local population. It is no geopolitical tool but a great opportunity for shared development," said Mr Wang, speaking at a press conference on Friday held on the sidelines of China's annual legislative meetings in Beijing.

On Thursday, on a visit to Manila, Dr Mahathir had sounded a warning to the Philippines which is tapping funds from China to build its infrastructure. He had said: "If you borrow huge sums of money from China and you cannot pay, you know when a person is a borrower he is under the control of the lender, so we have to be very careful with that.
Some 123 countries and 29 organisations have signed on to the BRI since it was proposed six years ago, said Mr Wang on Friday, calling it a vote of confidence and support for the development strategy by Beijing.

Mooted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the BRI aims to connect China to Europe, Africa and other parts of Asia by building a network of ports, roads, railways and industrial hubs, reviving ancient over land and over sea trade routes.

But it has also been described as being a form of debt trap diplomacy, where massive infrastructure projects funded by Chinese loans leave partner countries in debt and pliant toward Beijing.

Critics often cite the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, which began as a joint venture in 2008. But Sri Lanka was unable to repay the loan and was forced to cede control of the port to Chinese firms on a 99-year lease.

But Mr Wang said that BRI has become the largest platform for international cooperation and a global public good.

"Signing up for the BRI has enabled countries to grow at a faster pace, improve their people's lives and reap win-win outcomes," he said.

He also said that the Belt and Road Forum due to be held in Beijing next month (April) will be the most important diplomatic event China would host this year.

Thousands of delegates from over a hundred countries are expected to attend the forum – including Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong – where agreement is expected on key projects..

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east- ... ys-chinese

I mean seriously, who are you going to believe?
Me or your lying eyes?

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

China now says LENDERS are to blame; not Beijing

https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/diploma ... t-and-road

Hitler and the autobahns

April 24, 2019
Game of loans and the New Silk Roads
Debt and transparency cast a shadow over the Second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing

Banners flutter across the freeways in Beijing. Posters hang from the walls of the media center for China’s foreign policy pageant of the year.

Later this week, the Second Belt and Road Forum rolls into town at the National Convention Center with President Xi Jinping delivering his traditional keynote speech to a host of foreign dignitaries.

Critics of the BRI cite concerns of unsustainable debt and a lack of transparency, comparing the program to a glorified game of loans with hidden strings attached.

Converts insist it is a worldwide phenomenon.

“At the top of Beijing’s priorities is a liberal economic order built on free trade,” Yan Xuetong, the dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University, said in his seminal paper, The Age of Uneasy Peace. “China’s economic transformation over the past decades from an agricultural society to a major global powerhouse was built on exports.

“The country has slowly worked its way up the value chain, its exports are beginning to compete with those of highly advanced economies,” he continued. “China’s exports are vital to its economic and political success [and] one should expect Beijing to double down on its attempts to gain and maintain access to foreign markets.

“This strategic impetus is at the heart of the Belt and Road Initiative, through which China hopes to develop a vast network of land and sea routes that will connect its export hubs to far-flung markets. At its 2017 National Congress, the Chinese Communist Party went so far as to enshrine a commitment to the initiative in its constitution – a signal that the Party views the infrastructure project as more than a regular foreign policy,” Yan, a highly influential academic, added.
Full article: https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/04/artic ... ilk-roads/

In Laos, A Chinese-Funded Railway Sparks Hope For Growth — And Fears Of Debt

In Southeast Asia's only landlocked country, the Mekong River is a lifeline. From a slow boat heading up the river in Laos, you'll see fishermen working in their boats, riverside farms where bananas grow, and domesticated buffalo lazing. Occasionally a ferry chugs by. From time to time, steps leading to a riverside village become visible on the banks through the foliage. The wind is swift, and the brown fresh water laps up onto the side of the boat.

Just over 9 miles north of Luang Prabang, a startling aberration appears: five giant concrete pylons rising out of the water.

read the rest by clicking the link rather than playing the audio:

timmydownawell wrote: ↑Sun Apr 28, 2019 1:53 pm In Laos, A Chinese-Funded Railway Sparks Hope For Growth — And Fears Of Debt

In Southeast Asia's only landlocked country, the Mekong River is a lifeline. From a slow boat heading up the river in Laos, you'll see fishermen working in their boats, riverside farms where bananas grow, and domesticated buffalo lazing. Occasionally a ferry chugs by. From time to time, steps leading to a riverside village become visible on the banks through the foliage. The wind is swift, and the brown fresh water laps up onto the side of the boat.

Just over 9 miles north of Luang Prabang, a startling aberration appears: five giant concrete pylons rising out of the water.

read the rest by clicking the link rather than playing the audio:

More on China in Laos: the-rest-the-world/what-china-doing-laos-t28470.html

It's all scaremongering. Everyone knows China is benevolent, altruistic and and.... just plain fantastic. As soon as other countries sign up for their own version of social credit the world will be just steps away from utopia! Fortunately I'll be dead by then.

Johnny

my loanshark said the same thing.

Last year, with more than $1 billion in debt to China, Sri Lanka handed over a port to companies owned by the Chinese government. Now Djibouti, home to the US military’s main base in Africa, looks about to cede control of another key port to a Beijing-linked company, and the US is not happy about it.
Beijing “encourages dependency using opaque contracts, predatory loan practices, and corrupt deals that mire nations in debt and undercut their sovereignty, denying them their long-term, self-sustaining growth,” said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on March 6. ”Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap, but its approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any, jobs in most countries,” he added.

Some call this “debt-trap diplomacy“: Offer the honey of cheap infrastructure loans, with the sting of default coming if smaller economies can’t generate enough free cash to pay their interest down. In Sri Lanka, acrimony remains around Hambantota and projects like “the world’s emptiest airport.”

The Center for Global Development, a non-profit research organization, analyzed debt to China that will be incurred by nations participating in the current Belt and Road investment plan. Eight nations will find themselves vulnerable to above-average debt: Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, the Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Pakistan, and Tajikistan.
https://qz.com/1223768/china-debt-trap- ... oad-plans/