The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth

**bsnub** · 08-02-2021, 08:11 PM

Originally Posted by Wasp

So no Sources then ? Just your own prejudiced determinations .

I am not going to do your homework for you mate there is a mountain of evidence online if you choose to see it.

Originally Posted by Wasp

Next you'll be going to the Reputation Section to call me names.

You earned it you wanker.

**sabang** · 08-02-2021, 08:18 PM

Over to the TD CSI. Find something, some evidence to back up the political rhetoric you are parroting. As an ex-investment bloke I am most interested to see some real stuff, real evidence rather than the politically motivated grandstanding, and am furthermore in a position to analyse it. The above article certainly knocks spots off the "Chinese debt trap" invective as it applies to Hambantota.

**bsnub** · 08-02-2021, 08:30 PM

Originally Posted by sabang

Find something, some evidence to back up the political rhetoric you are parroting.

Clearly we live in different worlds. I can see it in numerous documentary films as well as published papers. You seem to dispatch the obvious to support a narrative. Typical and you have become nothing more than a propaganda swallowing lemming like 74 million Americans.

**Wasp** · 08-02-2021, 08:46 PM

Originally Posted by bsnub

Clearly we live in different worlds. I can see it in numerous documentary films as well as published papers. You seem to dispatch the obvious to support a narrative. Typical and you have become nothing more than a propaganda swallowing lemming like 74 million Americans.

When you can only talk rubbish .

When you get all your beliefs from the Internet .

When you have only poisonous and prejudiced rhetoric .

What comes next ? Oh yes . Personal abuse .

You bsnub are simply a stereotype .

**OhOh** · 08-02-2021, 09:36 PM

Some may never find the truth. Tis best to print an opinion and ignore the weakening bleating of the sheep.

**Wasp** · 08-02-2021, 09:43 PM

Originally Posted by Bored

But but.... investing in a potential is the capitalist way isn't it? That it does not always come to fruition is the way of it isn't it?
The voice of objection so often comes from those who forgot already the basis for ojection !

China IS a thoroughly Capitalist economy .
With a Communist Political system .

**Wasp** · 08-02-2021, 09:44 PM

Originally Posted by OhOh

Some may never find the truth. Tis best to print an opinion and ignore the weakening bleating of the sheep.

You gave me a Migraine with this one OhOh .

But I'm sure its very perceptive .

w.

**harrybarracuda** · 08-02-2021, 11:10 PM

Originally Posted by sabang

Over to the TD CSI. Find something, some evidence to back up the political rhetoric you are parroting. As an ex-investment bloke I am most interested to see some real stuff, real evidence rather than the politically motivated grandstanding, and am furthermore in a position to analyse it. The above article certainly knocks spots off the "Chinese debt trap" invective as it applies to Hambantota.

But it doesn't. It leaves out that Chinastan invariably gets these countries to borrow money at unfavourable rates to build either white elephants or projects useful to Mr. Shithole's grand "Belt and Owed" plan. That money when borrowed is then given to chinky companies who supply chinky labour and chinky materials.

The local country ends up with (in this case) a port, an airport and a road or two that it never needed and a bucketload of more debt to the chinkies, who win all round.

The chinkies end up with some nice loan payments and chinky companies end up with the profit on a nice fat construction project. Some local "official" will probably have either skimmed his share off the top or received a chinky cake tin or two.

There are ample reports throughout this forum of what the chinkies have done across SEA and Africa, dislodging villagers from their lands and their livelihoods so that they can profit through cheap labour, produce, minerals or whatever it else they pay corrupt officials to steal en masse.

Look especially for Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, there is plenty there for you to read unless, like hoohoo and the rest of our chinky brown nosers you don't wish to face the truth about the chinky parasites and the effect they are having across the world as they plunder what they can.

They use this "debt diplomacy" wherever they can get away with it.

**Wasp** · 09-02-2021, 12:44 AM

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

But it doesn't. It leaves out that Chinastan invariably gets these countries to borrow money at unfavourable rates to build either white elephants or projects useful to Mr. Shithole's grand "Belt and Owed" plan. That money when borrowed is then given to chinky companies who supply chinky labour and chinky materials.

The local country ends up with (in this case) a port, an airport and a road or two that it never needed and a bucketload of more debt to the chinkies, who win all round.

The chinkies end up with some nice loan payments and chinky companies end up with the profit on a nice fat construction project. Some local "official" will probably have either skimmed his share off the top or received a chinky cake tin or two.

There are ample reports throughout this forum of what the chinkies have done across SEA and Africa, dislodging villagers from their lands and their livelihoods so that they can profit through cheap labour, produce, minerals or whatever it else they pay corrupt officials to steal en masse.

Look especially for Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, there is plenty there for you to read unless, like hoohoo and the rest of our chinky brown nosers you don't wish to face the truth about the chinky parasites and the effect they are having across the world as they plunder what they can.

They use this "debt diplomacy" wherever they can get away with it.

I dislike the Chinese as much as anybody does .
But nobody from China goes into Tanzania and forces them to have a White Elephant airport .
Nobody from China went into Sri Lanka and forced them to have a quite useless Port .
Did they use Chinese labour , technicians and funds ? Yes .
Is it all badly constructed with substandard steel and concrete ? Almost certainly !
But its a huge Vanity project foisted upon the Sri Lankan people by 2 Governing brothers who built it in their childhood area . It was a White Elephant before it even began but the Chinese have no morals about that .
The Canadians , Americans and Europeans DID have morals about it all and stepped away so the corrupt Sri Lankan President should have never signed up to it at all . Did some Chinese money wander into Swiss Banks ? The whole thing is a stinking mess but nobody -- not even the corrupt Chinese -- forced it upon Sri Lanka .

**HermantheGerman** · 09-02-2021, 01:09 AM

Originally Posted by Wasp

It was Sri Lanka's decision to build a Port .

It was not China's decision to build there .
But once Sri Lanka had foolishly decided to build one - why shouldn't China bid for the job ?

China now has a strategically important base in the Indian Ocean. Why not? Any dummy can see that.

**HermantheGerman** · 09-02-2021, 01:12 AM

Originally Posted by Wasp

China IS a thoroughly Capitalist economy .
With a Communist Political system .

Guess that explains that:

At the beginning of September, Laos had to surrender control of its electricity network to China. China is increasing its economic influence not only in Laos, but also vis-à-vis Thailand and Vietnam, already two of the most important consumers of Laotian electricity. And so Beijing now has a practical leverage in hand to motivate Thailand to build the next section of the Kunming-Singapore rail link. China's arm is getting longer.

**HermantheGerman** · 09-02-2021, 01:16 AM

To be fair....I own Chinese stocks, so I don't give a flying shit, as long as my stocks keep going up.
You either fly with the eagle or scratch with the chicken.

@Backspin.....keep an eye on Gazprom

**Wasp** · 09-02-2021, 01:20 AM

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

China now has a strategically important base in the Indian Ocean. Why not? Any dummy can see that.

This is disgusting , Herman .
Just disgusting .
You make a statement which is wrong ..... and attach that if anyone disagrees then they are a ' dummy ' .
Because of course YOUR interpretation must automatically be correct .

But you're plain wrong .
That Port is a lame Port and it certainly is not a " strategically important base in the Indian Ocean " for China or in fact anybody !
ONE ship at a time can get in there and needs a tug . How many minutes would it take for the Indian Forces to block that place ?
Certainly under an hour . It's just a Port . A DUMB Port that should never have been constructed . It's now an albatross around the necks of the Sri Lankan people . Most definitely not a " strategically important base " !

**Wasp** · 09-02-2021, 01:30 AM

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

Guess that explains that:

At the beginning of September, Laos had to surrender control of its electricity network to China. China is increasing its economic influence not only in Laos, but also vis-à-vis Thailand and Vietnam, already two of the most important consumers of Laotian electricity. And so Beijing now has a practical leverage in hand to motivate Thailand to build the next section of the Kunming-Singapore rail link. China's arm is getting longer.

Your hostility to China is pure paranoia .
Yes China puts money in and consequently has influence . But nobody was pointing any guns at the Laotians when they took the money !
Does America have Financial Investments in the area ? Do the British ? Do the French ? Do the Japanese ? The Koreans ? Singapore ???

China will not in any way be able to persuade Thailand to build a section of railway .
Thailand will decide that all by itself and will absolutely DEFINITELY have British and American financiers advice .
Your Chinese paranoia certainly has YOU in its grip .

**jabir** · 09-02-2021, 01:51 AM

Just wondering how the Sri Lankans could possibly not know it was going to be a one-ship port; not like it was built by Lego overnight. Could be baksheesh. In fact quite frankly I can't see it being anything else, so whoever's signature is on that paper off with his head.

As we know the Chinese are quite capable of building islands complete with port and airbase in the middle of the sea, so we shouldn't dismiss the possibility/likelihood/certainty (your choice) that their engineers designed SLs one-ship port as a white elephant that can be upgraded into a military base. That said, I can't imagine why they might wish to have a base right on the Indian Ocean, aside from the beaches.

**panama hat** · 09-02-2021, 02:32 AM

Originally Posted by HermantheGerman

China now has a strategically important base in the Indian Ocean. Why not? Any dummy can see that.

Originally Posted by Wasp

This is disgusting , Herman .
Just disgusting .
You make a statement which is wrong

Settle down, missy . . . he makes a very accurate statement, this isn't the first nor the last port they've done this with - see Pacific islands

Originally Posted by jabir

That said, I can't imagine why they might wish to have a base right on the Indian Ocean, aside from the beaches.

Because:

An interesting article, it's a long read but worth it:

China Faces Barriers in the Indian Ocean

John Lee & Charles Horner
Even as the world’s attention is focused on the East China Sea and the South China Sea as focal points of China’s strategic outreach onto the high seas, the East Indian Ocean has become another critical body of water. In the United States, where the word “pivot” is now prominent in the discussion of America’s strategic future in Asia, the Indian Ocean is itself seen as a kind of a pivot all its own, a place where the interactions among the land-based and sea-based interests of important countries are already salient and and will become more so.
Indeed, there is no other place where the bedrock concerns of the United States, India, China, Japan, and Australia all converge, making the Indian Ocean strategically integral to the balance of power in the Western Pacific.

In particular, the East Indian Ocean is a major building block in China’s grand project to transform itself into a great world power, and it is already playing a distinct role in China’s development as both a naval and as a continental power. The map below illustrates Beijing’s sense of what is required to secure the country’s naval frontier and its “sea lines of communication” to the West.
But the map is also instructive because it highlights the fact that coastal facilities are also envisioned by China as ways of aiding inland development by opening up regions of the country previously cut off from access to the sea.
This interest is well-placed. The Indian Ocean is now the world’s busiest trade route. More than 80 percent of the world’s seaborne trade in oil (equivalent to about one-fifth of global energy supply)—oil which fuels the economies of Southeast Asia, South Korea, Japan, and China—transits it.
In particular, some 40 percent of the world’s seaborne oil trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, with almost all of that oil then traveling across the Indian Ocean, thence through the Strait of Malacca. Even though China can meet 90 percent of its energy needs from domestic sources, it currently imports around half of its oil.
Hudson Institute has been studying China’s growing involvement in Central Asia as part of a new March West. China has already invested heavily, and will invest considerably more, in developing sources of energy that can be delivered to the China solely overland. Even so, it will remain unavoidably reliant on seaborne imports for the foreseeable future.
Today, China’s imports run to around 5 million barrels per day and will reach about 13 million barrels per day by 2030. As part of its March West, China has completed a pipeline which begins on Burma’s coast and runs into Yunnan province. At full capacity, this pipeline will move about 440,000 barrels per day. China also plans to construct a pipeline from Siberia designed to pump about 620,000 barrels per day into North China. Another pipeline linking the Caspian Sea oil fields of Kazakhstan to west China is planned to deliver of about 400,000 barrels per day.
Even if these massive transcontinental projects proceed as planned, petroleum delivered by sea will become even more important than it is today as China-bound petroleum passes through the Strait of Hormuz in ever-growing quantities. China is now the major investor in developing Iraqi oil fields, as it is in Sudan and Angola.
These Mid-East, Africa to China connections are well-expressed in monetary terms. From negligible levels in the 1990s, trade between China and the Middle East will rise to more than $500 billion by 2020. China is now a major investor in Africa and about a million Chinese nationals live and work there and, for the past decade, China’s trade with Africa has been growing at more than 20 percent per annum.
But the Indian Ocean-Pacific Ocean corridor is about more than just energy. A new kind of “triangular trade” has sprung up that links India, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific. India’s “Look East” policy has already produced trade between itself and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations of about $70 billion and turnover is expected to reach $100 billion by 2015. Even as the strategic competition between India and China intensifies, China has become India’s largest trading partner, at about $75 billion per annum.
Overall, the trade routes connecting the Middle East, South Asia, and the Asia-Pacific have already made of the Indian Ocean one vast “choke point”. Accordingly, China cannot move closer to actual strategic autonomy if it gains ascendancy in the South China Sea while the Indian Ocean still remains beyond the reach of its naval capabilities.
Understanding China’s sense of its future not only as a maritime power but also as a naval power requires that we broaden even this angle of vision. In the first place, the strategic importance of the East Indian Ocean as a point entree—a backdoor, if you will—into China needs to be appreciated once again.
We say “once again” because the region played a critical role in sustaining an otherwise isolated China during World War II. During the Pacific War of 1940-1945, the then Republic of China (RoC) was cut off from the sea; its government was based deep inland in Chongqing and the RoC came to rely on a southwest corridor, which enabled assistance across the Southeast Asian mainland from the United States and Britain, and on access by air to northwest India which enabled additional assistance from the United States.
The wartime experience of the RoC showed that, if China’s “backdoors” could be kept open, a regime based deep inside the country could be kept alive—even if an enemy had managed to occupy China’s coastal ports. The new People’s Republic of China (PRC) learned lessons from this experience. Because the maritime power of the United States could wreak enormous havoc on the new regime if ever the American government so decided, Mao’s early PRC was immediately interested in establishing its strategic presence in regions where the RoC had also sought positions.
In particular, the new People’s Republic assertively backed “wars of national liberation” on the Southeast Asian mainland, hoping that the regimes installed thereby would be strategic allies.
From the time France consolidated its control over Indochina, one of China’s main backdoors had been the French-built railroad that ran from Vietnam’s port of Haiphong to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. France closed it under Japanese pressure. The RoC sought to control it by backing its own friends in Vietnam in the immediate post-World War II period.
Thus, whatever the new ideological gloss PRC gave to its own “revolutionary” outreach into Southeast Asia, it had a venerable strategic genealogy. It remained a sensitive area. In l971, for example, a crisis occasioned by the breakup of East from West Pakistan on the Indian subcontinent almost immediately engaged the interests of major powers—the then-USSR, India, US, and the United States.
Today, the USSR has disappeared, but India, the PRC, Japan, Indonesia, and the United States all have important interests that converge in the East Indian Ocean. We should therefore expect jostling and bumping of the sort that is now commonplace in the waters farther east.
The Indian Ocean is also implicated in China’s future in another important, though less visible, way. Earlier, we alluded to the China’s new March West which is, in fact, a three-pronged advance.
The first route pushes due west from Chinese-ruled Central Asia, that is, Xinjiang, to the energy-rich lands of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and the shores of the Caspian. A second route moves west-by-southwest via Pakistan and also Afghanistan to Balochistan’s borders with Iran and the threshold waters of the Persian Gulf.
But it is the third route that is highly relevant to our discussion here. This route begins in Yunnan province, moves by rail and by highway further into Southeast Asia and is following a modernized version of the old south-westerly branch of the Silk Road, also into Bangladesh and then toward northeast India and across into Persia. Yunnan, which also borders Tibet, may yet emerge as the most important strategic pivot of this effort.
Yunnan, and other heartland provinces in China which still lag behind the more prosperous coastal regions, wish to assert themselves directly into the emerging Indo-Pacific economic corridor. Southeast Asia is a major target of opportunity, for it is part of a natural economic region—the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (a term coined by the Asian Development Bank.)
The sub-region includes Yunnan province, the Guangxi Autonomous Region, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. As this area toward the southwest beckons, parts of land-locked China are coming increasingly to see their economic future as diverging from that of the coastal provinces.
Indeed, it is already apparent that officials not only in Yunnan but in provinces further afield such as Sichuan, are betting heavily on an increasingly prosperous Greater Mekong Sub-region. Yunnan alone has a population of almost 50 million; the Guangxi Autonomous Region has a population of over 50 million. Together, they are more populous than any European country save Russia and their interest and energy in orienting their economies toward the Greater Mekong Sub-region is starting to tell.
In an inspection tour of Yunnan in July, 2009, then Chinese president Hu Jintao urged the Yunnan provincial government to take the lead in deepening economic cooperation with the Greater Mekong Sub-region.
As a result, Yunnan is now China’s main economic bridge into South and Southeast Asia and is starting to playing a larger political there, not least in promoting a blizzard of coordination and cooperation agreements that cuts across all major economic sectors. For strategically significant parts of west and southwest China which have begun to look outward in a new and different direction, the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea now loom at least as large as does the South China Sea for other parts of the country.
Seen from this larger perspective, the naval and maritime competition in the East and South China Seas cannot help but move west of the Straits of Malacca into what is still, militarily, relatively unoccupied space. Though the interests of many nations converge there, the Indian Ocean is still comparatively uncontested and the waters there are unburdened by old animosities of the sort one finds east of Malacca or by the complexity of overlapping exclusive economic zones.
The Indian Ocean is thus a space where small advantages can be leveraged to great advantage. Recent PRC “assertiveness” has alarmed and antagonized Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam—and of course the United States—making the Indian Ocean more attractive as a point of counter-pressure, even as the economic attractiveness of the region to the China’s southwest will, at the same time, help to strengthen the centrifugal forces inside the country.
So far as the United States is concerned, co-operation with partners like India and treaty allies such as Australia is, compared to the Pacific proper, relatively uncomplicated. Indeed, such cooperation fits naturally into the strategic traditions of both India and Australia, where the situation in the Indian Ocean has long been of practical, not merely theoretical, concern.
The growth in the PRC’s naval power is now another of those practical concerns but, if China’s naval power is in fact to prove world transforming, it will somehow have to figure out a way to reach from the South China Sea far to the west of Malacca and all the way to the core Middle East. China’s costs of doing that will rise as it attempts to reach across the Indian Ocean, a region where it has no real allies and no partners, save for an increasingly dysfunctional Pakistan, but a region where the United States has both.

China Faces Barriers in the Indian Ocean - by John Lee Charles Horner

**HermantheGerman** · 09-02-2021, 02:33 AM

Originally Posted by Wasp

This is disgusting , Herman .
Just disgusting .
You make a statement which is wrong ..... and attach that if anyone disagrees then they are a ' dummy ' .
Because of course YOUR interpretation must automatically be correct .

But you're plain wrong .
That Port is a lame Port and it certainly is not a " strategically important base in the Indian Ocean " for China or in fact anybody !
ONE ship at a time can get in there and needs a tug . How many minutes would it take for the Indian Forces to block that place ?
Certainly under an hour . It's just a Port . A DUMB Port that should never have been constructed . It's now an albatross around the necks of the Sri Lankan people . Most definitely not a " strategically important base " !

Maybe the +60 square kilometers can help convince you?

Mr. Rajapaksa was voted out of office in 2015, but Sri Lanka’s new government struggled to make payments on the debt he had taken on. Under heavy pressure and after months of negotiations with the Chinese, the government handed over the port and 15,000 acres of land around it for 99 years in December.

**harrybarracuda** · 09-02-2021, 03:31 AM

Originally Posted by Wasp

The whole thing is a stinking mess but nobody -- not even the corrupt Chinese -- forced it upon Sri Lanka .

You're not very bright.

The chinkies aren't dealing with "Sri Lanka". They are dealing with powerful individuals who personally benefit from this shit.

It most certainly was forced on Sri Lankans.

The same goes for any other corrupt country where the chinkies will be in there like a rat up a drainpipe to exploit the corrupt in power.

Laos, Vietnam, Venezuela, and you mention Tanzania FFS:

President John Magufuli asked for the cancellation of old debts totaling $167.7 million, according to the East African nation’s presidency. Earlier Friday, Tanzania signed a $1.32 billion rail-development contract with the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. and China Railway Construction Corp.

Do you know how Loan Sharks work?

**Hugh Cow** · 09-02-2021, 06:46 AM

The problem with countries like Sri lanka is they are easy prey to China finance. Sri Lanka has a fairly high debt but the problem is much of it is International foreign bonds which require higher interest and payouts at maturity rather than over time putting pressure on reserves. Their recent downgrade by credit agencies will only exacerbate future lending. An IMF bail out is probably their only way out, although the SL government has stated it would not refinance from the IMF.
China has a history of loans that have little chance of being paid out without concessions. The question is why do they do this when no other responsible lender will? Any due diligence would have told the Chinese of the poor likelihood of being repayed considering Sri Lanka debt.
No doubt the profit to China from using Chinese companies materials and Labour while giving little construction benefit to the local economy, combined with the political leverage that comes with debt, helps in their decision making.

**bsnub** · 09-02-2021, 07:07 AM

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

The chinkies aren't dealing with "Sri Lanka". They are dealing with powerful individuals who personally benefit from this shit.

It most certainly was forced on Sri Lankans.

The same goes for any other corrupt country where the chinkies will be in there like a rat up a drainpipe to exploit the corrupt in power.

Spot on.

Some posters in this thread are beyond reason and facts, to them China is unsoiled and can do no wrong. For those of use more reasonable posters China's intent is clear and the evidence is mountainous and not refutable.

**sabang** · 09-02-2021, 07:37 AM

China is the worlds largest manufacturer and a major exporter, possibly the world's largest- or maybe that is still Germany. Of course it wants and needs to secure essential resources overseas. Of course it wants secure trade routes, and port facilities to service, and if necessary protect these enormous trade routes. Given the constant hostile rhetoric from the US- which clearly feels threatened by the fact it is about to become second largest global economy after China- this just adds impetus to these initiatives. Nothing surprising there, and nothing surprising about the fact it is ramping up it's military strength also- to keep up with it's place in the World order. Nothing surprising about the fact the US doesn't like that either- it is human nature to resent the fact you re about to be knocked off your perch.

The US wants to be able to blockade China (or any other nation) at any point in time- that is it's strategy. But seriously, if you were Chinese would you allow a bellicose, apparently hostile foreign power to have that kind of leverage over you? Obviously not.

But back to the OP, I'm afraid no predatory practises can be ascribed to the Chinese with regards to Hambantota- actually as a banker i would have to say they have been very reasonable. But what of, say, large resource projects in Africa? I wonder- but I need evidence, not just more bellicose rhetoric and propaganda from an increasingly discomfited US of A.

And to those who perceive China only as a threat, I would ask a simple question- How many people have been killed by violent military action outside of it's Sovereign borders by China, compared to the USA and it's proxies? A laughably small amount. Much of the world perceives the US as a significantly greater threat than they do China.

**tomcat** · 09-02-2021, 07:51 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

But seriously

...

...drop the anti-American digs and focus on what the Chinese might gain from essentially owning a port in Sri Lanka...it seems you're good at resisting obvious conclusions in favor of diversion, misdirection and muddle...

**sabang** · 09-02-2021, 08:08 AM

I already did that TC, in the very post you so intellectually copied and pasted "But seriously" from. The fact that I try to look at geopolitical situations from more than one narrow perspective is called Objectivity- but of course if all you want me to do is swallow the US Koolaid, you might term it heresy, or even treason.

**jabir** · 09-02-2021, 08:21 AM

Originally Posted by Hugh Cow

The problem with countries like Sri lanka is they are easy prey to China finance. Sri Lanka has a fairly high debt but the problem is much of it is International foreign bonds which require higher interest and payouts at maturity rather than over time putting pressure on reserves. Their recent downgrade by credit agencies will only exacerbate future lending. An IMF bail out is probably their only way out, although the SL government has stated it would not refinance from the IMF.
China has a history of loans that have little chance of being paid out without concessions. The question is why do they do this when no other responsible lender will? Any due diligence would have told the Chinese of the poor likelihood of being repayed considering Sri Lanka debt.
No doubt the profit to China from using Chinese companies materials and Labour while giving little construction benefit to the local economy, combined with the political leverage that comes with debt, helps in their decision making.

There's wealth to be made in poverty, and we can't blame China for plying traditionally corrupt leaders (oh dear am I stereotyping!) of poor countries with a ton of cash for themselves and often irrelevant though priceless vanity infrastructure for the country; in return for influence and strategic resources.

It's easy for the hare and the tortoise to be played out in real life without anyone noticing. Western end goals are generally retarded by short political lifetimes, and the need by hook or crook to extend them for another term, while the CCP don't mind how far ahead we are since they plod along investing in longer term ideological goals. Like them or not imho it's working.

**tomcat** · 09-02-2021, 08:31 AM

Originally Posted by sabang

if all you want me to do is swallow the US Koolaid

...fortunately, the options you present aren't the only ones available...I expect rational thought may rear its ugly head eventually...

Thread: The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth

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