Is Chinese money creating a debt trap in Tonga?
- South Pacific island nation owes Beijing about US$108 million, or a quarter of its gross domestic product
- Experts say country could be important to China’s navy or coveted for its fisheries, seabed minerals and natural resources
The days unfold at a leisurely pace in Tonga, a South Pacific archipelago with no traffic lights or fast-food chains, and where snuffling pigs roam dusty roads.
Yet even in this far-flung island kingdom, there are signs a battle for power and influence is heating up among much larger nations – and Tonga may end up paying the price.
Government officials work in a shiny new office block that was an US$11 million gift from China. Dozens of bureaucrats take all-expenses-paid training trips to Beijing each year. And China has laid out millions of dollars to bring Tongan athletes and coaches to a training camp in China’s Sichuan province.
“The best facilities. The gym, the track and a lot of equipment we don’t have here in Tonga,” said Tevita Fauonuku, the country’s head athletics coach. “The accommodation: lovely, beautiful. And the meals. Not only that, but China gave each and everyone some money. A per diem.”
China also offered low-interest loans after pro-democracy rioters destroyed much of downtown Nuku’alofa, the Tongan capital, in 2006, and analysts say those loans could prove its undoing.
The country of 106,000 people owes about US$108 million to China’s Export-Import Bank, equivalent to about 25 per cent of its gross domestic product.