As the coronavirus spread around the globe, Pakistan’s foreign minister called his counterpart in Beijing last month with an urgent request: The country’s economy was nose-diving, and the government needed to restructure billions of dollars of Chinese loans.
China faces difficult choices. If it restructures or forgives these loans, that could strain its financial system and infuriate the Chinese people, who are suffering under their own slowdown. But if China demands repayment when many countries are already angry with Beijing over its handling of the pandemic, its quest for global clout could be at risk.
At the forefront of the spree is the Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping’s $1 trillion program to finance infrastructure projects across the world and pick up allies from in the process. Since the initiative started in 2013, China has lent up to $350 billion to countries, about half of them considered high-risk debtors.
Debt relief is “not simple or effective,” Song Wei, an official in the research arm of China’s Ministry of Commerce, wrote in the Global Times, a newspaper controlled by the Communist Party. “What China could do to help is bring projects funded by loans back to life and realize sustainable profits, instead of measures as simple as offering write-offs.”
The Trump administration has accused China of “debt trap diplomacy,” lending more money than poor countries could afford to seize strategic assets and to expand its military and economic footprint. China also relied on a secretive web of bilateral negotiations for Belt and Road, to line officials’ pockets or get them to agree to unreasonable terms, some debtor countries claim. Malaysia pushed back on a $16 billion loan package, pressuring Beijing to cut it to $11 billion.
But Song, the Commerce Ministry official, wrote in the Global Times that preferential loans from the Export-Import Bank of China are “not applicable for debt relief.” The Export-Import Bank of China is Belt and Road’s money pot, financing more than 1,800 projects worth at least $149 billion, the lender revealed last year.
nytimes Yun nga yung point nila, kaya nagpapautang nang alam nilang imposibleng mabayaran, para di makatanggi yung gobyerno sa tsina. Di bale, babagsak din tong tsina na to, araw-araw ko kayang sinusumpa sila. 😂
nytimes this is how Communists will own Philippines.. if the country cant pay debt on time communists wants collateral
nytimes One way to fight back is to buy locally made products. Boycott Made in China products. Kaya ba natin yun? Malamang yung mobile phone na ginagamit mo ay Apple version ng mga intsik! We have to fight harder 🧐
nytimes China don't lent money to poor nation instead they lent money to strategic important country who are poor. Ex. is srilanka, when they can't repay China asked srilanka to give control of a port for 100 years
nytimes Kung magkakagyera, malamang sa malamang tsina nagpasimuno.
nytimes A lot of Chinese businessmen do this tactic; lending them a huge amount of money they know they won't be able to pay it on time and will ask something else in return. I just can't believe they did this tactic to concur a country/countries indirectly.
nytimes Include Philippines in there luring tactic of China so they can manipulate and turn them to be their puppet like Digong..pweh!!!
nytimes Philippines already paid them back by giving them the WPS with Benham Rise as icing on the cake.
nytimes China, now owns them the greed and corruption has now come back. They did this in Africa.
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