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Outside In | China’s Belt and Road Initiative is here to stay, whether the US likes it or not
- David Dodwell says China’s ambitious infrastructure-funding project is a reflection of the country’s vision of itself and a way to ensure the stability of its neighbours
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A headline in this newspaper just a week ago said it all: “Dim future seen for Belt and Road programme”. It is in vogue to portray China’s ambitious infrastructure-focused plan, embracing at least 80 countries, as a strategy in trouble.
As some would have it, the Belt and Road Initiative’s project stream has dried to a trickle as countries have wised up to the danger of debt traps and threats to sovereignty.
They are turning their backs on opaquely structured projects that serve China’s interests far more than those of the host country and provide a dumping ground for surplus Chinese steel and cement in a new form of colonialism.
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Critics point to the US$20 billion on-again-off-again East Coast Rail Project in Malaysia, to Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port where Chinese contractors have converted debt into a 99-year lease to operate the port, to controversial hydropower dam projects in Pakistan and Myanmar.
They point to dirty coal-fired power plants being built in Serbia, and multibillion-dollar projects being agreed on without transparent, competitive tendering processes.
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US Vice-President Mike Pence warned leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Papua New Guinea in November: “Some are offering infrastructure loans to governments across the Indo-Pacific … Yet the terms of those loans are often opaque at best. Projects they support are often unsustainable and of poor quality. And too often, they come with strings attached and lead to staggering debt.”
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