China’s attempts to woo South and Central Asian countries with a total of US$126 billion of investment in 17 years have proved the most polarising of its efforts to gain regional influence, because of concerns over debt traps, transparency and Chinese labour, according to research in the United States. Read Here – South China Morning Post
In this sense, China is acting like the colonialists of old: For nearly a century, Britain, first through the East India Company and then under the Crown, exported its own mediocre men to supposedly civilize the South Asian Raj, contributing to the Empire’s impotence and eventual fall. Today, China is ultimately undermining its efforts to […]
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to India next month might look like a landmark moment in the warming of relations between the two countries. But look a little closer and one seemingly intractable obstacle remains: Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative. The plan remains a thorny issue in relations. Read Here – South China Morning […]
Introduced under considerable fanfare in 2015, CPEC provides much-needed financing for infrastructure and energy pipelines that Pakistan could not entice other investors to underwrite. However, the expected payoff is unlikely to compensate for the sizable risks to which these investments expose the Pakistani economy. Read Here – RealClearWorld
China’s infrastructure and energy driven US$1 trillion Belt and Road initiative involves risky bets across a swath of land populated by often illiberal or autocratic governments exercising power without independent checks and balances. Seeking to reduce risk, China is bumping up against the limits of its own long-standing foreign and defence policy principles, foremost among […]
The ballots hadn’t even been counted yet when the deals were announced. On April 26, just two days after Election Day, Indonesia signed 23 memorandums of understanding with China, worth $14.2 billion in all, for several major infrastructure projects. They came after months of silence about Chinese investment in Indonesia—by design, as President Joko Widodo […]
More to the point, when it comes to China, we are dealing with a unique and very formidable cultural organism. The American foreign policy elite does not like to talk about culture since culture cannot be quantified, and in this age of extreme personal sensitivity, what cannot be quantified or substantiated by a footnote is […]
Empirical evidence of China’s aggression is increasingly common, from its attempt to dominate the South China Sea, the neo-imperialist effort to gain control of states through the Belt and Road Initiative, to its technological imperialism to control 5G and artificial intelligence technologies. What is rather less frequent are statements from high-level Chinese officials proclaiming the […]
Port City Colombo, an ambitious Chinese-funded project to build a new metropolis on a 665-acre island reclaimed from the sea, is set to rise just off the popular spot in a couple of decades. Rising in tandem, however, are concerns about the amount Beijing is lending Colombo, and the circumstances of those loans – with the controversial […]
The fact that 37 heads of state and government attended the just concluded second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing proves that a growing number of states are seeking to jump on the BRI bandwagon and grab a slice of the pie. It is indeed a massive initiative, envisioning an integrated network stretching from the […]
looking beyond borders 