As US relations sour, Philippines taps China-backed AIIB to fix crumbling infrastructure
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has tapped a China-backed multilateral lender to help fund his government’s “unprecedented infrastructure build-up”, the finance minister said on Monday, as he seeks closer relations with Beijing.
Eat your [US] aid and we will survive. I’ll go to China
Duterte has vowed to boost spending to address crumbling infrastructure, saying he would seek funds from China as he pivots his nation’s foreign policy away from traditional ally the United States.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said he met with AIIB president Jin Liqun in Manila last week, who confirmed the lender would fund two projects.
“The Philippines’ membership to the AIIB would provide the government another source of long-term funding ... for the Duterte administration’s unprecedented infrastructure buildup,” Dominguez said in a statement Monday.
Duterte, 71, increasingly turned to China for loans and aid as he took exception to United States criticism of his drug war that has killed thousands.
Duterte told US President Barack Obama to “go to hell” in October, and has alluded to severing ties with the old colonial power.