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Alternative viewpoint: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/opinion/china-belt-road-initiative.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/opinion/china-belt-road-i..

Alternative viewpoint: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/opinion/china-belt-road-initiative.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/opinion/china-belt-road-i...

Farradfahren 7y ago
If it were colonialism, that would be a strange thing, because only western country can produce colonialism, while victim countrys and socialistic countrys can have puppet-states and liberate other countrys but never colonialize them. The HMS Narrative running aground again, threatening to sink once more into the salty waves. Its another round of the greatest game, fun for new and old players.
owens99 7y ago
Thanks for sharing. Key point: > Yes, debt is on the rise in the developing world, and Chinese overseas lending is, for the first time, a part of the story. But a number of us academics who have studied China’s practices in detail have found scant evidence of a pattern indicating that Chinese banks, acting at the government’s behest, are deliberately over-lending or funding loss-making projects to secure strategic advantages for China. > The main example of these purported ploys is the Hambantota Port in southern Sri Lanka: The government handed control over the port to a Chinese company in 2017 after struggling to make its loan payments to China. But that’s a special case, and it is widely misunderstood. > China does not publish details about its overseas lending, but the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University (which I direct) has collected information on more than 1,000 Chinese loans in Africa between 2000 and 2017, totaling more than $143 billion. Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center has identified and tracked more than $140 billion in Chinese loans to Latin America and the Caribbean since 2005. > Based on the findings of both institutes, it seems that the risks of B.R.I. are often overstated or mischaracterized.
- y2kenny 7y ago
  According to the wiki, BRI started around 2013 [1] so how come loans made prior to that being counted towards BRI? My recollection is that, prior to BRI/earlier loan diplomacy from China, the strategic goal was for influence in the UN against Taiwan (checkbook diplomacy.) So the goals are completely different. 'Taiwan’s current foreign relations bind stems from a deal brokered in 2008. This “diplomatic truce” guarantees that neither China nor Taiwan will pursue formal diplomatic relations with a country that has already recognized one or the other. Beijing calls it the one-China policy, and it forces nations to choose between it and Taipei, with Beijing increasingly coming out the more appealing choice.'[2] Lumping data over strategic change seems like a poor research to me. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative#Histo... [2]https://www.voanews.com/a/once-influential-in-africa-taiwan-loses-all-but-one-ally/4411332.html https://www.voanews.com/a/once-influential-in-africa-taiwan-...
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Yet something has put off a fairly large number of nations from joining the latest event in the BRI initiative.

Alternative viewpoint: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/opinion/china-belt-road-initiative.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/opinion/china-belt-road-i...

Farradfahren 7y ago

If it were colonialism, that would be a strange thing, because only western country can produce colonialism, while victim countrys and socialistic countrys can have puppet-states and liberate other countrys but never colonialize them. The HMS Narrative running aground again, threatening to sink once more into the salty waves. Its another round of the greatest game, fun for new and old players.

owens99 7y ago

Thanks for sharing. Key point: > Yes, debt is on the rise in the developing world, and Chinese overseas lending is, for the first time, a part of the story. But a number of us academics who have studied China’s practices in detail have found scant evidence of a pattern indicating that Chinese banks, acting at the government’s behest, are deliberately over-lending or funding loss-making projects to secure strategic advantages for China. > The main example of these purported ploys is the Hambantota Port in southern Sri Lanka: The government handed control over the port to a Chinese company in 2017 after struggling to make its loan payments to China. But that’s a special case, and it is widely misunderstood. > China does not publish details about its overseas lending, but the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University (which I direct) has collected information on more than 1,000 Chinese loans in Africa between 2000 and 2017, totaling more than $143 billion. Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center has identified and tracked more than $140 billion in Chinese loans to Latin America and the Caribbean since 2005. > Based on the findings of both institutes, it seems that the risks of B.R.I. are often overstated or mischaracterized.

y2kenny 7y ago
According to the wiki, BRI started around 2013 [1] so how come loans made prior to that being counted towards BRI? My recollection is that, prior to BRI/earlier loan diplomacy from China, the strategic goal was for influence in the UN against Taiwan (checkbook diplomacy.) So the goals are completely different. 'Taiwan’s current foreign relations bind stems from a deal brokered in 2008. This “diplomatic truce” guarantees that neither China nor Taiwan will pursue formal diplomatic relations with a country that has already recognized one or the other. Beijing calls it the one-China policy, and it forces nations to choose between it and Taipei, with Beijing increasingly coming out the more appealing choice.'[2] Lumping data over strategic change seems like a poor research to me. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative#Histo... [2]https://www.voanews.com/a/once-influential-in-africa-taiwan-loses-all-but-one-ally/4411332.html https://www.voanews.com/a/once-influential-in-africa-taiwan-...
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Yet something has put off a fairly large number of nations from joining the latest event in the BRI initiative.