The public opinion on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is predominantly negative. It is largely seen as a strategic move by China to ensnare economically vulnerable countries in debt, serving China's geopolitical ambitions at the cost of the countries' sovereignty and financial stability. The initiative is criticized for its perceived neo-colonial tendencies, with parallels drawn to imperialist strategies of the past. Despite acknowledging some infrastructural benefits, there are significant concerns over the economic viability and execution of these projects.

China

Participating Countries

Submission statement:

Italy has officially informed China that it is quitting the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), dismissing fears the move might sour relations and damage the Italian economy, government sources said on Wednesday.

aventus13

Marco Polo is not impressed. All jokes aside , this didn’t benefit Italy much.

StillBurningInside

That lasted about as long as a cheap tee from Shein.

YuanBaoTW

Can easily see this becoming a trend for the countries that can afford to leave the initiative. It's a complete failure and another thing to add to the list of promising Chinese global initiatives that have fallen flat on their face after Xi decided to show the world his true face.

China is doomed to suffer embarrassment after embarrassment until Xi is either gone or reverses course on his insane view of what global soft power actually looks like.

Ok_Research497

Stop calling it the belt and road initiative it is the “One belt One road” initiative and China wants control of that one belt and road.

Cerveza_por_favor

The Bribe and Extortion program is only good for those leaders who get the bribes from China, and those in China that extort countries to pay for things they can't afford eternally thereafter.

Reef_Argonaut

Yi dai yi lu seems like it’s becoming an embarrassing disaster for China. Everything Xi touches dies.

[deleted]

Can't wait to see how the Chinese propaganda machine spins this one.

culman13

No more Gucci Belts and Ferrari's for your roads, China! 😁*

*I know that isn't what the Belt and Road initiatives were about.

GlobalTravelR

StickAFork

Italy makes is the belts, of the belt and road …how you gonna have a belt and road, without the designer belt??

Mysentimentexactly

stg_676

Good on Italy, a nice kick on Xi's rear..

YouStylish1

Hey, it’s your old pal, Xi. Nice natural resources you got there. What do you say I build you a faulty damn, and we worry about the bill later.

MIDNIGHTZOMBIE

I thought the BRI was already dead in the water?

LettuceSea

I wonder if China will remove the recently released free visa for Italian citizens.

hadrian_afer

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BespokeDebtor

Its not a debt trap, it's a desperate attempt to build a secondary supply line since in the case of a conflict the straits of Malacca would be blockaded and China would lose access to 80% of its imported oil to just start.

lokken1234

Large trade surpluses resulted in a need to put money somewhere. With increasing political animosity to and vulnerability in buying US Tbills, they initiated these investment deals. People forget that one of the main causes for the "century of humiliation" or the Opium Wars was from the massive trade surplus China was getting from England. China only wanted silver in exchange for silk, china and tea, but the Brits were emptying their treasury and needed a new product for China. 

With the US and Foxnews and even left wing democrats saying that China "owns" the US via their purchases of treasury bills, China needed to find a new way to invest billions of dollars. Also the fact that the US has shown that they can just seize soverign wealth by just seizing Afghanistan's and Russia's funds and gold showed China that they need to decouple. 

The BRI is great in that it leverages what China is good at, which is building infrastructure and is using it to help build greater ties to countries, build trade routes for itself and develop struggling economies through infrastructure that in turn would benefit itself. Take for example the new highspeed train from SW China through impovished landlocked Laos and eventual Bangkok. The Laos part is already done and is already connecting the two major Laos cities and improving the economy of the two Laotian cities.

uriman

They must’ve learned that from watching America, The confessions of an economic hitman explains this as being American default behaviour for the last century.

A study recently came out that confirmed what they are saying. For instance, in Sri Lanka the overwhelmingly majority of their foreign debt is owned to the West, and not to China.

PLA_DRTY

There's nothing wrong with China loaning to developing countries, especially for infrastructure.

However, it's become pretty clear that China and the nation's involved are not doing proper cost-benefit analysis and are taking extremely risky loans for projects which will probably not succeed or be financially viable. The blame lies both with China and the governments of the nation's involved.

BlueWhoSucks

I mean, the idea of Debt Trap has been repeatedly debunked by academics multiple times and through various investigative reporting. Why this narrative still exists is beyond me.

TheCriticalAmerican

This is always an non issue. If the West doesn't want china to set debt traps, all they have to do is offer loans with better terms.

But because we can't compete and we don't like seeing china succeed, we came up with this debt traps concept and throws mud at china.

earthlingkevin

Sounds like it’s straight out of the IMF playbook. Is anyone in the US actually trying to provide loans with better terms or are they only angry because another country benefits from debt instead of themselves? 
How is this any different from the Western foreign policy for the last 50 years?

Grrrath

IMO China's massive industrial capacity needs customers, because there's only so much you can do in just China. There're physical limits to building. BRI attempts to open this industrial capacity to the world. This way countries can leverage China's amazing industrial power to develop their own infrastructure, keep the money flowing and the economy moving. Of course this also means China gets a major in some infrastructure and related affairs, which might not always be in a country's best interest.

I am very interested to see what happens when, if ever at all, BRI dries up, there just isn't enough to build, or countries are so skeptical that there aren't very many takers.

Smooth_Detective

I used to work in international development and it is so fascinating to read these comments. Comments about U.S. soft power are particularly interesting because the truth is that while U.S. leaders often talk about using economic diplomacy and development as a tool of soft power competition with China, the U.S. has vanishingly little ability to do that right now and is nearly absent in this space.

First, there's no western competition against China's development loans because Western governments *don't do* development loans. They do development grants. Generally governments would rather take the grant, but there's very little money in that pot and the lead times and transparency requirements for projects that use U.S. money are sometimes considered too onerous. Second, as much as the government might want to they can't convince the private sector into competing in these spaces. There's a lot of reasons Chinese SOEs have little competition in financing these projects that are less simple than "debt traps," including:
- Profit-driven business don't want to touch the project because there's too much risk.
- Sometimes Chinese financiers are just not good businessmen (there are a lot of mundane political/banking reasons for this) and offer terms that don't work out for anyone.
- Cronyism
- Lower transparency and labor requirements
- GloMag sanctions

It's funny because a lot of times Beijing is shooting itself in the foot with these development projects when it comes to gaining popular support. There are a lot of cases where developing country governments accept sweetheart Chinese financing and everyone is really happy about it, and then the local populace sours as the project moves forward. The governments still love the Chinese money, but it oftentimes engenders resentment among the locals because the way China executes development projects frequently hurts the local economy (because they import Chinese labor), are unnecessarily environmentally damaging, damage trust at the local level (because of lack of transparency), and sometimes the work itself is shoddy or halting.

dumbcaramelmacchiato

I think the more concerning thing here is that the CCP uses cyber-terrorism disguised as other state actors to try to scare/manipulate governments into joining this initiative. 

https://www.mandiant.com/resources/blog/unc215-chinese-espionage-campaign-in-israel

&gt;Artifacts in UNC215 campaigns often **contain foreign language strings that do not match the country being targeted and may be intended to mislead** an analyst examining the malware. Additionally, on at least three occasions, UNC215 employed a custom tool associated with Iranian actors whose source code was leaked.

&gt;China has conducted **numerous intrusion campaigns along the BRI (Belt Road Initiative) route to monitor potential obstructions—political, economic, and security—and we anticipate that UNC215 will continue targeting governments and organizations** involved in these critical infrastructure projects in Israel and the broader Middle East in the near- and mid-term.

SpacOs

Let's count how many military bases China gets out of massive spending that countries cannot pay back. There's a separate list that's countries where the government falls because the debt is so huge or the leaders stole so much money that they had to flee. Giving billions of dollars to impoverished countries without much oversight is almost certain to lead to a lot of the money going to fraud.

Seattle2017

All roads and ports seem to lead to China. Shame some big ol powerhouse of a country like the US just seemed to give up that role in the world.

China has worked with almost 150 countries and spent US$1 trillion as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative to open cross-border trade routes while placing many countries in a debt-trap

Fixed it

00PSIEDOOPSIE

China is fucking poorer countries over. What they are doing is a form of colonization. They loan countries money at high rates and require that they hire their chinese contractors to build the infrastructure. While the building is ongoing they maltreat the locals. Then when they poor countries fail to pay the loan due to the high interest , the chinese sieze the infrastructure and all the profits from it.

An important part of Chinas belt and road project is in an area India regads theirs and occupied by Pakistan

SymbolicDom

I thought Ukraine was a keystone in the belt and road project. Have they been removed?

ralpher1

India is the only other member which is big enough to say no.

all those talks about BRICS ditching the dollar but we often forget that China and India are at war so yeah, the dollar will be fine...

fratboy0101

It's nothing new. India has not supported the Belt and Road Initiative in the joint declaration of previous summits.

ecws86

Of course they’d reject it. Parts of the project are building straight through land China seized from India fairly recently (for how old the countries are)

Out of all the foreign countries in attendance, only India was real and big enough not to cup "These little Chinese nuts" per Leslie Chow

DJBassMaster

Good for India for resisting it. But how is the increasingly worse off economy of China even going to fund all these projects at this point.

unovayellow

Of course, India doesn't want China to get the upper hand.

Young-Rider

If India wanted a rival belt and road initiative, a train line from Almaty (Kazakhstan) - Bishkek (Kyrgystan) - Tashkent (Uzbekistan) - Dushanbe (Tajikistan) - Kabul (Afghanstan) - Islamabad (Pakistan) - New Delhi (India) - Mumbai (india) could be a really good route. Its a relatively short path and gives a lot of these land locked countries sea access via India

For the Bishkek to Tashkent route I would bypass the Fergana Valley by swinging north again. Going via Taraz and Shymkent.

You would have to overcome political instability in eg. Afghanistan though.

ShareYourIdeaWithMe

SowingSalt

Many of the Belt and Road construction projects have resulted in failing systems due to use of shoddy materials and cheap labor.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hidden-debt-plagues-chinas-belt-and-road-infrastructure-plan-studies-find-11632866461

Jay_Beckstead

My first thought when I heard of this initiative was that China will eventually use this to invade  a lot of territory.

GirlScoutSniper

Honestly, if India and China really worked together, they could rule the world. Thankfully that probably won't be happening to the extent they both need anytime soon.

Rosebunse

RU4realRwe

BRICS ARE TOTALLY GONNA OVERTHROW THE WEST YOU GUYS!

420trashcan

FakeOng99

Now we know the real reason for the standing ovation.

But BRICS is a thing. Don't let any Westerner tell you otherwise! It's not like economic or political alignment is important! No sir, BRICS being in constant conflict with each other is a *good* thing!

IllustriousNorth338

Anti-China posts in 3,2,1...lets go. No objective discussion. Just 'China bad. Give upvote' comments.

misererefortuna

Why do India has this power to refused china? And why did they need approval.

zerxgm

Bruh always borders related issue just fix the border why do u think somehow one can grab more land when all 3 are nuclear powers u can't say china that
' Sir we lost war against you because you attacked us when our relation was at best and you had 4x the military than ours so u backstabbed us and it's not good so pls give the seized land back ' just fix the border no claims in each other's side.

In the words of the great Kelso  - "You got BUUURRRNED"

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Good. Those governments are finally understanding China’s dirty tactics to take advantage of these smaller poorer countries.

PieYet91

Maybe using Debt Trap policy wasn't such a good idea ?. When people know you want to screw them over they are less inclined to do business with you . Their Wolf tactic diplomacy have thrown away decades of diplomatic work and any goodwill from the world. 

You need some sort of reputation to being reliable and Trustworthy  to do business.  Maybe this is why both China and US are failing so miserably lately .

bivox01

I don't understand why the Americans even want to compete with China. Xi has pretty much undone all the reforms by Deng that led to prosperity, isolated China, damaged its economy, tech sector, culture. He is Chinese Trump.

Drizzzzzzt

The entire purpose of the program was to create a bunch of debtor nations they could use as puppets, without actually needing to build relationships.

Sunny_Reposition

It's such a terrible program we're copying it a decade later with "Build Back Better World"

I would honestly love to see the BRI vs IMF scoreboard when it comes to "debt traps"

grim_bey

&gt; AidData's study received funding from a diverse group of private and public organizations, including the Ford Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

Opinion discarded

Cheesy_Monkey

Who doesn't want to work in a Chinese run loyalty center? /$

Fandango_Jones

TheFrenchTickler1031

Finally, other countries are seeing that the Belt and Road Program (and also the Silk Road Program) are shams design to screw them over, in favor of China. It was obvious being that a) China would grant massive loans they knew the country(countries) can't pay back in a timely manner b) build ports/roads, etc... that were massively too big for the country (countries) own use, c) forced the agreement to have only Chinese own businesses using Chinese owned/made material, using only Chinese workers. And rarely used a local workforce for the lowest and dirtiest/hardest jobs. d) all of these new infrastructure projects would be more convenient for China and Chinese interests than even the countries where they were being built, etc...

randomnighmare

Wait until China has to pay for the maintenance cost for all their shiny infrastructure built in the past decade. China is a ticking money trap. Those cost are usually rearing its head after twenty years of use.

Eeik5150

China: We'll build your infrastructure but we'll need debt.

America: We wont build your infrastructure but we'll give you cash to do so but we'll need military bases.

Jormungandr000

rwandahero7123

Well let’s hope not too many people die

Smoked-939

The US and/or EU should have immediately paid off any Belt &amp; Noose loans and signed agreements, would have been hilarious.

GoingForwardIn2018

Guys, this is 300 millions in propaganda of the US congress in action, LOL.

phamnhuhiendr95

"Debt repayment" aka transfer of national assets

China doesn't expect them to be paid back with money, but with valuable infrastructure (ports, railways etc.) and it's working out quite well for them so far.

Renricom

MrWonderfulPoop

China is going to acquire a bunch of assets on the cheap. Just like in Montenegro, where they built a high way to nowhere way over budget to seize the port

EducationalTea755

It will be either refinanced or restructured as China will need to be repaid in the form of cash or “favors”.

They might have been better off dumping these loans into Chinas countryside to be honest as I see Pakistan in this listing and Pakistan alone has defaulted 24 times. You’d pretty much have to be the biggest gambler of all times to approve a loan to most of these countries.

Deicide1031

China's going to get a lot of new ports and mines when the countries can't repay. China already knows most of the countries can't repay and will default, but they can leverage the debt in other ways.

Sea-Witness-2746

darknekolux

Maybe they should just pull a Trump and refuse to repay?

fuck-nazi

CapitaineFred

China's about to find out why noone else would finance those countries

CorticalVoile

xdr01

When it’s time to take ay back the WTF no articles get written. But if China loans countries money its a big thing if they get paid back. Wonder why

Pure-Decision8158

I think China is about to see their own 2008 financial crisis

Modernsizedturd

Aka the realization of the "all your base are belong to us" plan: China edition

zennok

Deja vu, this story pops up today everywhere just like days ago the story about China's "rogue devices" in solar panels did.

uniyk

Those 75 countries signed a deal with the devil. Now let them reap what they sow.

JonesyCA

Looks like China will have grounds to spread “freedom” to those countries

CodeVirus

China never expected repayment, they expect deeds to the infrastructure/land. That’s the whole point of the Belt and Road. Too bad Chinas builds are complete shit which has been failing globally.

spazzvogel

Weird, I was told by internet shills that the debt traps werent real...

AlphaMetroid

This is nothing new. I'm sure China will refinance the debt for concessions over control of policy and what not. It's just imperialism doing its thing the less violent way.

CrisscoWolf

75 of the world's poorest countries are set to repay $22 billion to China, causing financial strain and impacting essential public services.

China's Belt and Road Initiative Debt Repayment Crisis in 2025

Why This Matters

Public Sentiment Summary

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