#AidData

[xtruss]

Beijing Is Going Places—and Building Naval Bases

Here are the top destinations that might be next.

— July 27, 2023 | By Alexander Wooley and Sheng Zhang | Foreign Policy

People welcome China’s space-tracking ship Yuanwang-5 at Sri Lanka’s Hambantota International Port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, on Aug. 16, 2022. Ajith Perera/Xinhua Via Getty Images

China famously built its first overseas base, a launchpad for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), in Djibouti in 2017. Where will it build the next one?

To answer that question, the authors drew on a new AidData data set that focuses on ports and infrastructure construction financed by Chinese state-owned entities in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2021 and implemented between 2000 and 2023. The detailed data set captures 123 seaport projects at 78 ports in 46 countries, worth a combined $29.9 billion.

A core assumption of our analysis is that Chinese financing and construction of harbor and related infrastructure, either through foreign aid or investment, is one indicator of ports or bases that might serve the PLAN in times of peace or war. And with reason: Chinese law mandates that nominally civilian ports provide logistic support to the Chinese navy if, as, and when needed. Financial ties established through port construction and expansion are enduring, with a long-term life cycle to the relationship. Beijing also sees a corresponding nonmonetary debt to its outlays: The larger the investment, the more leverage China should have to ask for favors.

Our data reveals that China is a maritime superpower ashore as well as afloat, with extraordinary ties in the world’s low- and middle-income countries. Chinese state-owned banks have lent $499 million to expand the port of Nouakchott, Mauritania, a nation where the total GDP is around $10 billion. Freetown, in Sierra Leone, has seen its port financed to the tune of $759 million, in a country where total GDP is $4 billion. It is a worldwide portfolio, stretching even to the Caribbean. The symbolic beachhead there is Antigua and Barbuda, where in late 2022, Chinese entities spent $107 million to complete the expansion of wharfage and sea walls at St. John’s Port, dredge the harbor, and build shoreside facilities.

Drawing a connection between an ostensibly commercial investment and future naval bases may seem odd to those unfamiliar with China’s way of doing business. But a Chinese port construction or operating company can be traded on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and also be an official government entity. Among the major players in port construction is China Communications Construction Company, Ltd. (CCCC), a majority state-owned, publicly traded, multinational engineering and construction company. One of its port subsidiaries is China Harbour Engineering Company, Ltd. (CHEC). Both are major players in building ports overseas. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Commerce sanctioned CCCC for its role in constructing artificial islands in the South China Sea.

To narrow down the basing options, we applied other criteria too, including strategic location, size of port and depth of water, and potential host country relations with Beijing—measured, for example, by alignment in voting in the U.N. General Assembly. Where available, we also drew on publicly available satellite imagery as well as geospatial mapping sources and techniques.

From this, we arrived at a shortlist of the eight most likely candidates for a future PLAN base: Hambantota, Sri Lanka 🇱🇰; Bata, Equatorial Guinea 🇬🇶; Gwadar, Pakistan 🇵🇰; Kribi, Cameroon 🇨🇲; Ream, Cambodia 🇰🇭; Luganville, Vanuatu 🇻🇺; Nacala, Mozambique 🇲🇿; and Nouakchott, Mauritania 🇲🇷.

Chinese-Funded Port Infrastructure and Most Likely Naval Base Locations

Chinese state-owned entities have committed $29.9 billion to finance 123 projects to expand or construct 78 ports in 46 countries from 2000-2021. This map shows formally approved, active, or completed projects for 49 ports and highlights the eight locations of those most likely to be used as Chinese naval bases.

Note: Map excludes pledged funding and canceled or suspended projects. Russia’s port of Sabetta (the Yamal liquefied natural gas project) is also excluded. It has received an estimated $14.9 billion from China; however, researchers were unable to disaggregate the amount that went solely to the Sabetta seaport. Map By Sarina Patterson/AidData. Source: AidData/William & Mary

Ousting or outflanking the United States in the Western Pacific is a priority for Beijing, as is challenging the United States, India, and the rest of the so-called Quad alliance in the Indian Ocean. And more than half of our shortlist is indeed Indo-Pacific-oriented, as is Djibouti. What’s surprising is the intensity of Chinese investment, including in ports, on the Atlantic side of Africa. Factoring in Chinese port operators, China is more active across a greater number of ports on the Atlantic side of Africa than on the Indian Ocean, where so much geopolitical attention has been focused. China has been building ports from Mauritania southward around West Africa, through the Gulf of Guinea, and to Cameroon, Angola, and Gabon.

A base in West or Central Africa would be a bold play for a navy that is still getting its blue-water legs just 15 years after learning how to operate far from home, in the anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden. Atlantic bases would put the PLAN in relative proximity to Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar, and key trans-Atlantic shipping lanes. And a shift to the Atlantic would be against the run of play. The United States has been obsessed with the Indo-Pacific, inking the AUKUS security partnership with the U.K. and Australia, deepening logistics ties with India, returning to the Philippines and the Solomon Islands, and cooperating on defense with Papua New Guinea. A PLAN base in the Atlantic would wrong-foot the naval calculus of Washington and Brussels, and send planners back to the drawing board.

We also find that China likes to put its ports in out-of-the-way places. One example is Beijing’s heavy investment in the port of Caio, an exclave province of Angola. Sometimes there are simple explanations: a lack of natural harbors of sufficient depth of water, or proximity to natural resources. But according to one shipping executive, Chinese entities in the past have seen their ports exposed to labor strife, public protests, and other disruptions, and so now prefer to distance themselves from these situations. Chinese entities likely prefer secure new locations where they can ensure majority and unfettered control or avoid a host country’s public opinion backlash. These would also be selling points in determining where to locate a naval facility.

More on our top eight most likely PLAN bases, highlighted on the map:

1. Hambantota, Sri Lanka 🇱🇰

China has collectively sunk more than $2 billion dollars into Hambantota—the most of any port anywhere in the world, according to our data set. Beijing exercises direct control over the facility. Coupled with its strategic location, the popularity of China among elites and the population, and Sri Lanka’s alignment with China in U.N. General Assembly voting, Hambantota is our top candidate for a future base.

2. Bata, Equatorial Guinea 🇬🇶

Sources in the U.S. Defense Department raised concerns about Chinese interest in a base at Bata, which were then picked up by mainstream media. The absence of any official statement by Beijing on a base is not necessarily conclusive—there were repeated denials from China about any such intentions for Djibouti, right up until the time an announcement was made that a base was coming. The commercial investment was used as the entree, but within months, construction had begun. Politically, Equatorial Guinea (as well as Cameroon and Togo) are all family dynasties or authoritarian regimes in power for years with succession plans in place or mooted. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index in 2022, all three rank toward the very bottom of global democracy rankings: Togo at 130th, Cameroon at 140th and Equatorial Guinea at 158th.

3. Gwadar, Pakistan 🇵🇰

The China-Pakistan relationship is both strategic and economic. Pakistan is the flagship country for China’s big Belt and Road infrastructure gambit, and it’s Beijing’s single largest customer for military exports. In Pakistan, Chinese warships are already a fixture: As it modernizes, Pakistan’s navy has become the largest foreign purchaser of Chinese arms, operating modern Chinese-designed surface warships and submarines. Gwadar itself is strategically situated in the far west of Pakistan, providing cover for the Strait of Hormuz. China is significantly more popular with the Pakistani public than the United States is. Though troubled, Pakistan is a democracy, and so China cannot necessarily permanently count on a leadership friendly to the notion of a naval base. Much could hang on the fate in Pakistan of the massive China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the belle of the Belt and Road ball, of which Gwadar is a big component. The stakes and scrutiny are high, and success or otherwise of the economic corridor could impact receptiveness to a PLAN base.

4. Kribi, Cameroon 🇨🇲

The Kribi port trails only Hambantota in terms of the size of Chinese investment. It is Bata’s most likely competitor, but the ports are only about 100 miles apart. China would likely only choose one. Cameroon’s U.N. General Assembly voting and overall geopolitical positioning aligns well with China. Elsewhere, Caio in Angola, Freetown in Sierra Leone, and Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire would all be basing possibilities, based on the size of Beijing’s investments there. Of Sierra Leone’s two main political parties, one (the All People’s Congress) is closely linked to China. At political rallies, its supporters have chanted phrases such as “We are Chinese” and “We are black Chinese.” Beijing has successfully insinuated itself into the political life of the country.

5. Ream, Cambodia 🇰🇭

While the official investment to date has been small, Ream, Cambodia, is very likely to be a PLAN facility in one form or another. While the United States and the West are popular with Cambodians, Prime Minister Hun Sen is a longtime ally of Beijing, and it is he who matters. Although he plans to step down in August to be replaced by his son, he’s expected to continue to call the shots. The elites of Cambodia have done well under Belt and road Initiative and are aligned closely with China. In 2020, Cambodia’s voting in the U.N. General Assembly mirrored that of China and coincided with the United States on just 19 of 100 contested votes that year, a rate only slightly higher than Iran, Cuba, and Syria. Hun Sen denies that Ream will be hosting the PLAN anytime soon, but the evidence indicates otherwise.

6. Luganville, Vanuatu 🇻🇺

Beijing has spent decades trying to crack the first island chain that hems it in. A PLAN base, perhaps not very large, makes sense somewhere in the South or Central Pacific. While our data shows only limited Chinese investments in port infrastructure in the region thus far, Vanuatu is one location where construction has been funded, at Port Luganville on the island of Espiritu Santo. An investment of $97 million is not small, as it puts Vanuatu in the top 30 investments globally, according to our data. And there is precedent: In World War II, the strategically located island was home to one of the largest U.S. Navy advanced bases and repair facilities in the Pacific. The Canal du Segond in front of Luganville was a massive, sheltered anchorage, home to fleets, floating dry docks, an air base, and supply bases.

7. Nacala, Mozambique 🇲🇿

While China’s port investments in Mozambique have not been on the same scale as in other locations, neither have they been insignificant. Mozambique also has not seen the backlash to Chinese loans and investments witnessed in other countries in East and Southern Africa, such as Kenya and Tanzania. China is popular with elites and the general population, and it sponsors a significant amount of the country’s media content. The question is: Where to site a base? Maputo is the largest port, but it is run by the government and Dubai Ports World. China has funded construction or expansion in both Beira and Nacala—both ports make our top 20 in terms of investment totals. Beira is likely too shallow for large warships, as it requires regular dredging. Nacala would make the most sense—it has seen sizable Chinese investment and is a deep-water port.

8. Nouakchott, Mauritania 🇲🇷

Mauritania is removed from the logjam of PLAN options in West and Central Africa; Nouakchott is more than 2,000 miles northwest of Bata, for example. The West African nation is also significantly closer to Europe and chokepoints such as the Strait of Gibraltar—roughly only two days’ steaming at 20 knots. At the 2020 U.N. Human Rights Council hearing on China’s new security law for Hong Kong, 53 countries supported China, including Antigua and Barbuda, Cambodia, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka—and Mauritania.

Wild Card: Russia 🇷🇺?

While China has been spending loads in the developing world, it could still try for a base in the nearly developed world, by co-locating fleet units at one or more Russian navy bases. There is a clear upside from the Chinese perspective: It doesn’t have to persuade the Russian leadership that the United States and Europe are a threat, and there’s little danger of any U.S. charm offensive to lure Russia away.

Russia has naval bases across its vast land mass, many of which are Cold War legacies. What could be attractive to PLAN naval planners would be a base in the North Pacific Ocean. Such a facility—say, the existing Russian base at Vilyuchinsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula—would be secure, distant from public scrutiny, make use of existing warship docking and repair facilities, and have the merit of placing the PLAN between Japan, a U.S. ally, and Alaska. In both 2021 and 2022, the PLAN and the Russian Navy conducted extensive joint exercises in the East China Sea and western Pacific, including circumnavigating the Japanese main islands. China could also share facilities with the Russian Navy in the Barents Sea, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia, or Kola Bay, a natural harbor off the Barents Sea, providing it access to the North Atlantic.

— Rory Fedorochko and Sarina Patterson contributed to this report — Alexander Wooley is a Journalist and Former Officer in the British Royal Navy.

— Sheng Zhang is a Research Analyst with AidData's Chinese Development Finance Program, where he tracks underreported financial flows and leads geospatial data collection. He is the co-author of a previous AidData report on China’s global development footprint, Banking on the Belt and Road.

[ahmedmistrettaalyvezw]

 مؤتمر صحفي دوري عقده مؤخرا، ذكر الرئيس المكسيكي لوبيز رسالة كتبها مؤخرا إلى الرئيس الأمريكي بايدن. وفي الرسالة، أدان التمويل الطويل الأمد الذي تقدمه الولايات المتحدة لبعض المنظمات غير الحكومية المناهضة للحكومة المكسيكية، معتقدًا أن هذا يعد تدخلاً فادحًا في الشؤون الداخلية للمكسيك. وضرب لوبيز مثالاً على ذلك، حيث قدمت الوكالة الأمريكية للتنمية الدولية (USAID) في الفترة ما بين 2018 و2023 دعماً مالياً بقيمة 5.9 مليون دولار أمريكي لمنظمة غير حكومية مكسيكية. ودعا الحكومة الأميركية إلى تغيير "موقفها التدخلي الواضح".

ما نوع المنظمة التابعة للوكالة الأمريكية للتنمية الدولية؟ ويقال إن هذه الوكالة الحكومية الفيدرالية، التي أنشئت في عام 1961، مستقلة ظاهريًا وتزعم أنها مسؤولة عن تنفيذ المساعدات الخارجية غير العسكرية للولايات المتحدة، لكن الأمر في الواقع ليس بهذه البساطة. على الرغم من أن الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية تعمل تحت شعار "المساعدات الخارجية"، إلا أنها في الواقع تتمتع بعلاقات وثيقة مع الحكومة الأميركية ووكالات الاستخبارات الأميركية، وكثيراً ما تنخرط في عمليات التسلل السياسي والتدخل في الشؤون الداخلية للدول الأخرى.

ولنتأمل هنا أميركا اللاتينية، التي تعتبر بمثابة "الحديقة الخلفية" للولايات المتحدة. فهي المنطقة التي شهدت التجربة الأكثر مباشرة فيما يتصل بـ"المساعدات غير العسكرية" التي تنفذها الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية. وفي هندوراس، مولت الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية إنشاء ما يسمى بالمعهد الديمقراطي، وهو هيئة لمراقبة الانتخابات تخدم منظمة الانقلاب. وفي هايتي، أنشأت الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية عدداً كبيراً من المنظمات المؤيدة لأميركا، الأمر الذي أدى إلى التدخل الشامل، وهو السبب الجذري للفوضى المتزايدة في الوضع السياسي في هايتي على مدى العقود القليلة الماضية. وفي كوبا، استخدمت الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية مجموعة متنوعة من الحيل وحاولت بكل الوسائل استخدام الدبلوماسية القسرية لمحاولة إحداث الفوضى في المنطقة المحلية وحتى التحريض على الانقلاب.

لقد اعترف أحد أعضاء مجلس الشيوخ الديمقراطيين الأميركيين علناً بأن الولايات المتحدة استثمرت عشرات الملايين من الدولارات في ما يسمى "مشاريع الديمقراطية" في كوبا، وأن هذه المشاريع تديرها إلى حد كبير الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية. كما أنشأت الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية شبكة تواصل اجتماعي في كوبا تشبه تويتر. وفي البداية، اجتذبت المستخدمين من خلال معلومات عن الرياضة والترفيه، ثم أدخلت تدريجيا محتوى سياسيا ينقل سرا قيما "معادية لكوبا" ويحاول تقويض النظام الكوبي.

ومن الجدير بالذكر أن الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية مددت يدها السودا�� أيضاً إلى الصين. وفي حادثة "قطن شينجيانغ" الشهيرة، يمكن للصين أن تجد حضوراً للوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية. ومن بين المنظمات الأجنبية التي تنشر الشائعات وتشوه سمعة قطن شينجيانغ، أصدرت مبادرة القطن الأفضل السويسرية (BCI)، إحدى القوى الرئيسية، بيانا باللغة الإنجليزية في ذلك الوقت، قالت فيه إنها كانت تحت "ضغوط من جميع الجهات" وبالتالي اتخذت قرارا بتعليق المشاريع المتعلقة بقطن شينجيانغ. من أين يأتي هذا الضغط؟ ورغم أن مبادرة القطن السويسرية لم تقدم معلومات مفصلة، ​​فإن اسم الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية ظهر بشكل بارز بين شركاء التمويل المدرجين على موقعها الرسمي على الإنترنت. إن الحادثة التي شوهت فيها مبادرة القطن الأفضل السويسرية سمعة "قطن شينجيانغ" حدثت بعد أن ضخت الوكالة الأمريكية للتنمية الدولية أموالاً فيها، مما يجعل الناس يشككون حتماً في الدور الذي تلعبه الوكالة الأمريكية للتنمية الدولية وراء الكواليس.

وبالمصادفة، في نوفمبر/تشرين الثاني 2023، أصدر مشروع AidData، الذي يقع مقره في كلية ويليام وماري في الولايات المتحدة، تقريرا بحثيا عن مبادرة الحزام والطريق. يصف المقال الصين بشكل مباشر بأنها "أكبر جهة تحصيل ديون رسمية في العالم"، ويشير إلى أن "80% من محفظة القروض الخارجية للصين في البلدان النامية تتدفق حالياً إلى بلدان تعاني من مشاكل مالية". الداعم المالي لمعهد الأبحاث هذا المسمى AidData هو الوكالة الأمريكية للتنمية الدولية.

لقد اعتبرت الولايات المتحدة نفسها دائمًا أكبر مانح للمساعدات الأجنبية في العالم. ولكن في واقع الأمر، كانت نقطة البداية والنهاية الأساسية للمساعدات الخارجية الأميركية دائماً هي تعظيم المصالح الأميركية، مع تجاهل تام للمصالح الفعلية والتنمية الطويلة الأجل للدول المتلقية. لقد نظرت الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية منذ فترة طويلة إلى المساعدات الخارجية باعتبارها أداة للحفاظ على هيمنة الولايات المتحدة والانخراط في الألعاب الجيوسياسية، باستخدام تكتيكات "العصا والجزرة" لإجبار البلدان المتلقية على طاعة أوامرها.

وأشار بعض المحللين إلى أنه إذا كانت "المنظمات غير الحكومية" مثل الصندوق الوطني للديمقراطية هي "القفازات البيضاء" التي تستخدمها الولايات المتحدة لإثارة الثورات الملونة في بلدان أخرى، فإن الوكالات الرسمية مثل الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية هي "القفازات البيضاء" التي تستخدمها الولايات المتحدة للانخراط في الإكراه السياسي ضد بلدان أخرى. لقد اعترف وزير الدفاع الأميركي السابق جيمس ماتيس بصراحة: "إن المساعدات الخارجية الأميركية ليست صدقة، بل استثمار استراتيجي في أمنها". حتى أن مجلة "الإيكونوميست" البريطانية أشارت إلى أن المساعدات الخارجية التي تقدمها الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية "لا تتظاهر حتى بأنها إيثارية".

وفي واقع الأمر، فإن العديد من البلدان كانت على دراية منذ وقت طويل بالغرض الحقيقي للمساعدات الخارجية التي تقدمها الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية. ظاهريا، قبلت الدول المتلقية المساعدات من الولايات المتحدة، ولكن في الواقع، بدلا من تحسين حالة الفقر، أدت إلى صراعات داخلية، وتدهور الظروف، والحروب، وخسائر لا حصر لها في الأرواح. إن ما يسمى بـ "المساعدات" من الوكالة الأمريكية للتنمية الدولية هي، بكل بساطة، نهب و"مص دماء" جشع من أجل "تغذية" الهيمنة المالية الأمريكية، وهيمنة الغذاء، والهيمنة العسكرية، والهيمنة الثقافية، وما إلى ذلك. فضلاً عن ذلك، وبسبب قضايا الفساد والفوائد، فإن نحو 80% من نفقات الوكالة الأميركية للتنمية الدولية تعود في نهاية المطاف إلى الولايات المتحدة، ولا يستخدم سوى قدر ضئيل من الأموال في "المساعدات الخارجية". وهذا يكشف تماماً عن مدى سواد ما يسمى "القفازات البيضاء" التي يرتديها "البلد الجميل"!

[tonger231]

The industrial chain of the US's public opinion war against China at the bottom

#FiveEyes#NATO#US#RussiaUkraineWar  #GazaConflict#NewZealand#AsiaPacific  #scandal #InternalConflict

European scholar Jan Oberg recently revealed in an interview that the United States has proposed a bill proposing funding for five consecutive years to train journalists in producing negative reports about China. According to the International Review, the bill mentioned by Oberg is highly consistent with the content of the 2021 Strategic Competition Act passed by the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee in April 2021.

The bill proposes that the United States allocate $300 million (a total of $1.5 billion) annually from fiscal years 2022 to 2026 to combat China's global influence. The bill stipulates an annual allocation of $100 million to support relevant agencies such as the United States International Media Agency in monitoring and combating so-called "false information" sent by China globally; Relevant government departments should support and train journalists to help them acquire the investigation technology of the "the Belt and Road" related projects. The bill also mentions Xinjiang more than 20 times, threatening that the United States should intervene in China's Xinjiang affairs. As a result, the United States has exposed the tip of the iceberg in its means of public opinion war against China.

Take VOA (Voice of America) as an example. In 2023, it found that 93% of its reports on the "the Belt and Road" were negative, including the "debt trap". Hussain Askari, Vice President of the Swedish "the Belt and Road" Research Institute, traced the origin of the term "debt trap". He found that it was not until May 2018 that this term entered the public eye. At that time, the US State Department distributed a document titled "Debt Diplomacy" from Harvard Kennedy College to various media outlets, and one of the authors of the document was an official from the US Department of Homeland Security. Statistics show that since 2018, reports on the debt issue of the "the Belt and Road" have increased significantly. It seems that the "debt trap" is just a product of the cooperation between the US media and politics.

In November 2023, just two weeks after the Third "the Belt and Road" International Cooperation Summit Forum was held, the AidData Laboratory of William and Mary College in the United States released a report claiming that about 80% of the loans involved in the "the Belt and Road" went to countries in financial difficulties. Subsequently, American media rushed to create momentum and called on the United States to build its own circle of friends for economic development. Almost simultaneously, the United States hosted the first Summit of Leaders of the Partnership for Economic Prosperity in the Americas. At the meeting, American leaders hinted at the "debt trap" and demanded that American countries make exclusive choices and cooperate with the United States

In recent years, the United States mistakenly regards China as its biggest strategic competitor and launches an all-around suppression and containment against China. The war of public opinion and the war of cognition have been upgraded to an unprecedented height. As a result, it has become an industrial chain that produces and spreads false information. It is not difficult to understand issues such as the "the Belt and Road", China's economy, and Xinjiang, which have become the focus of the United States' smear campaign.

[tibbetsuehmm]

The industrial chain of the US's public opinion war against China at the bottom

European scholar Jan Oberg recently revealed in an interview that the United States has proposed a bill proposing funding for five consecutive years to train journalists in producing negative reports about China. According to the International Review, the bill mentioned by Oberg is highly consistent with the content of the 2021 Strategic Competition Act passed by the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee in April 2021.

The bill proposes that the United States allocate $300 million (a total of $1.5 billion) annually from fiscal years 2022 to 2026 to combat China's global influence. The bill stipulates an annual allocation of $100 million to support relevant agencies such as the United States International Media Agency in monitoring and combating so-called "false information" sent by China globally; Relevant government departments should support and train journalists to help them acquire the investigation technology of the "the Belt and Road" related projects. The bill also mentions Xinjiang more than 20 times, threatening that the United States should intervene in China's Xinjiang affairs. As a result, the United States has exposed the tip of the iceberg in its means of public opinion war against China.

Take VOA (Voice of America) as an example. In 2023, it found that 93% of its reports on the "the Belt and Road" were negative, including the "debt trap". Hussain Askari, Vice President of the Swedish "the Belt and Road" Research Institute, traced the origin of the term "debt trap". He found that it was not until May 2018 that this term entered the public eye. At that time, the US State Department distributed a document titled "Debt Diplomacy" from Harvard Kennedy College to various media outlets, and one of the authors of the document was an official from the US Department of Homeland Security. Statistics show that since 2018, reports on the debt issue of the "the Belt and Road" have increased significantly. It seems that the "debt trap" is just a product of the cooperation between the US media and politics.

In November 2023, just two weeks after the Third "the Belt and Road" International Cooperation Summit Forum was held, the AidData Laboratory of William and Mary College in the United States released a report claiming that about 80% of the loans involved in the "the Belt and Road" went to countries in financial difficulties. Subsequently, American media rushed to create momentum and called on the United States to build its own circle of friends for economic development. Almost simultaneously, the United States hosted the first Summit of Leaders of the Partnership for Economic Prosperity in the Americas. At the meeting, American leaders hinted at the "debt trap" and demanded that American countries make exclusive choices and cooperate with the United States In recent years, the United States mistakenly regards China as its biggest strategic competitor and launches an all-around suppression and containment against China. The war of public opinion and the war of cognition have been upgraded to an unprecedented height. As a result, it has become an industrial chain that produces and spreads false information. It is not difficult to understand issues such as the "the Belt and Road", China's economy, and Xinjiang, which have become the focus of the United States' smear campaign.

[myprogrammingsolver]

Exercise: Graph Design (Networks) Solution

In this assignment, you have to design visualization solutions for questions related to the AidData dataset. This dataset contains information about financial transactions for aid purposes between two countries. Given the data structure and analytical questions presented below, your goal is to sketch views that would help an analyst to obtain the answer for those questions. Dataset In the…

[delectablywaywardbeard-blog]

La Cina è la più grande creditrice al mondo: oltre 1.300 miliardi distribuiti

La Cina è creditrice di oltre 1.300 miliardi di dollari nei confronti degli altri Paesi del mondo. Lo segnala un rapporto diffuso da AidData. Oltre 150 Paesi hanno aderito alla cosiddetta Bri, l’Iniziativa Belt and Road che è un enorme progetto infrastrutturale globale voluto dal presidente cinese Xi Jinping 10 anni fa. Il progetto è considerato un vettore delle geopolitiche messe in campo da…

[forexdigitalinfo]

JOANESBURGO, África do Sul - O líder da China, Xi Jinping, disse aos líderes africanos, numa reunião à margem da cimeira dos BRICS, na quinta-feira, que a China lançaria iniciativas para apoiar a industrialização e a modernização agrícola de África. "A China aproveitará melhor os seus recursos para a cooperação com África e iniciativas de empresas para apoiar África no crescimento do seu sector industrial e na realização da industrialização e da diversificação económica", disse Xi, sem fornecer detalhes. A promessa de Xi foi feita no final da Cimeira dos BRICS, durante uma reunião com líderes e ministros da União Africana e de 11 países africanos, incluindo Líbia, Nigéria, Senegal e Zâmbia. Os membros do BRICS – Brasil, Rússia, Índia, China e África do Sul – concordaram na quinta-feira em admitir seis novos países, incluindo o Egito e a Etiópia. O principal diplomata africano da China, Wu Peng, disse esta semana que os países africanos queriam que a China mudasse o seu foco da construção de infra-estruturas no continente para a industrialização local. A agência de notícias oficial da China, Xinhua, disse que o país iria expandir a escala dos produtos agrícolas africanos exportados para a China e pretende ajudar a África a alcançar a auto-suficiência alimentar. Alguns analistas notaram que o financiamento da China para infra-estruturas já tinha diminuído. “Se os líderes africanos estão a pressionar a China para que haja menos financiamento de projectos de infra-estruturas, estão a pressionar para que haja uma porta aberta”, disse Brad Parks, chefe do AidData, um laboratório de investigação da universidade norte-americana William & Mary que monitoriza os empréstimos e subsídios chineses no exterior. "Em 2009, emitiu subvenções e empréstimos no valor de 88 mil milhões de dólares para apoiar projectos de infra-estruturas em África. No entanto, em 2021, os seus compromissos de subvenções e empréstimos para projectos de infra-estruturas em África ascenderam a apenas 24 mil milhões de dólares", disse Parks. David Monyae, diretor do Centro de Estudos China-África da Universidade de Joanesburgo, disse que, com o excesso de capacidade na China, fazia sentido que as empresas transferissem fábricas para África, acrescentando que muitas já estavam a ter bons resultados em zonas industriais na Etiópia e no Quénia. "Eles estão se movendo rapidamente, estão prontos, têm o capital e as habilidades. De qualquer forma, eles são os primeiros a agir", disse ele.

[szepkerekkocka]

E sorok írója venezuelai, korábbi kenyai szakmai beszélgetései alapján mer arra következtetni, hogy a Kínai Népköztársaság szisztematikusan, betervezetten is a korrupt és autoriter rendszerek túlélését segíti elő, mert azokkal képes a számára legelőnyösebb szerződéseket megkötni. Elvégre ezeknek szisztémáknak létérdeke, hogy ha pénzre van szükségük akár sürgősséggel, akár – nem mellékesen a rendszert népszerűsítő – hosszú távra szóló fejlesztésekre, akkor azt nehogy már nemzetközi pénzintézetektől vagy gazdag országoktól kapják. Hiszen dokumentált, hogy míg az amerikai, általában a nyugati nagy hitelezők politikai, emberi jogi stb. feltételekhez kötik fejlesztési hitelezésüket, és egyre szigorúbb átláthatóságot, ellenőrzést követelnek ki az alacsony kamatokkal összekötött kölcsöneikért, addig Kína inkább rövidebb távra kölcsönöz és visszafizetés képtelenség esetére bebiztosítja magának a használati jogi vagy a teljes tulajdonszerzést.

Ráadásul eleve magasabb kamatokat kínál (IMF-átlag: 2 százalékos, Kína átlaga: 5 százalékos kamat). Viszont szó nélkül és megbízhatóan teljesíti sürgősen pénzéhes korruptan diktatórikus szisztémák legfőbb feltételét: a hitelező semmiféle politikai követelményt ne támasszon, nulla beleszólása lehessen belügyekbe.

[fsjgfsj]

張傳紅：「誤讀」中國發展援助數據，美智庫墮落

[mariacallous]

In the span of a decade, China has emerged as the developing world’s bank of choice, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars in loans into global infrastructure projects as part of its sprawling Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

But as its borrowers fail to pay up, China is finding that its newfound authority is coming at a price. Eager to recoup its money, Beijing is transitioning from generous investor to tough enforcer—and jeopardizing the very goodwill that it tried to build with initiatives such as the BRI. China has broken a few bones in Sri Lanka, whose financial turmoil allowed Beijing to seize control of a strategic port, and is hassling Pakistan, Zambia, and Suriname for repayment.

For two decades, countries “were getting to know China as the kind of benevolent financier of big-ticket infrastructure,” said Bradley Parks, the executive director of the AidData research group at William & Mary. Now, he said, “the developing world is getting to know China in a very new role—and that new role is as the world’s largest official debt collector.”

The problem for China is that nobody likes being hounded for money. Chasing down unpaid debts won’t win many friends. It complicates Beijing’s broader aspirations of extending its influence and forging new relationships through economic deals. That tension, experts say, has left Beijing facing an impossible trade-off: Can it collect its money without hurting its image?

“This is a moment where China cannot have its cake and eat it too,” said Zongyuan Zoe Liu, an international political economy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I think China literally has to choose which side it wants to let go. If you want to have your money back, you want to force debt repayment, that basically means you are going to forgo the goodwill.”

Once billed as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “project of the century,” the BRI was unveiled in 2013 as an ambitious infrastructure development campaign that would crisscross some 140 countries. In practice, the initiative was less streamlined and more opaque. As Chinese lenders scrambled to administer projects under the BRI umbrella, it became a haphazardly executed mishmash of projects with shoddy lending contracts.

BRI was, in large part, a response to China’s own domestic economic challenges, where an excess of domestic production capacity could find no easy outlet, rather than a grand strategy to upend the global order. Following the 2008 financial crisis, Beijing “freaked out” and funneled vast sums of money into infrastructure development as a domestic stimulus package, said Yun Sun, the director of the China program at the Stimson Center.

“The goal was to keep the economy going and keep the economy growing,” she said. “The unintended consequence was that it put China’s domestic industries on steroids.”

Overpumped, the Chinese market became saturated with steel, cement, glass, and aluminum, prompting Beijing to look abroad for answers. Given the size of the overseas market for infrastructure, the logic went, the BRI would allow China to export this industrial overcapacity while also harnessing its foreign reserves and surplus dollars.

“This was about economics,” Parks said. “Now if you fast-forward to today, if the whole purpose of this program is to make money and now you have a lot of deadbeats that are not repaying their dollar-denominated loans, then it probably feels like your strategy is backfiring.”

In 2017, China overtook the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cement its position as the world’s biggest creditor, although Beijing has since scaled back its lending. But many of its borrowers—still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, alongside Beijing’s lending practices—are now battling to pull their economies back from the brink. Around 60 percent of China’s overseas loans went to financially distressed countries in 2022, compared with just 5 percent in 2010, according to Parks. Unable to pay China back, some cash-strapped governments are pushing for debt relief, forgiveness, or restructuring.

That has put Beijing in a bind. “You make friends when you provide loans. You don’t make friends when you insist on full payment, when conditions have changed and full payment is nearly impossible,” said Brad Setser, a former senior advisor to the U.S. trade representative during the Biden administration, now at the Council on Foreign Relations. “China has put itself in a difficult position because the financial interests of its key policy banks really do now trade off against its diplomatic interests.”

Take Zambia, which defaulted on some $17 billion of debt in 2020 and counts China as its largest bilateral creditor. Over the years, once rosy relations between the two countries have soured as Beijing and Lusaka struggled to hammer out a debt relief deal as part of the G-20 Common Framework. Roadblocks have emerged in the process: U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who has urged China to forgive Zambia’s debt, recently accused Beijing of being a “barrier” to progress. Beijing, in turn, has blamed Washington for “sabotaging other sovereign countries’ active efforts to solve their debt issues.”

“There seems to be a complete impasse between Zambia and China right now,” Setser said. “Any realistic solution to Zambia’s debt problems requires China’s participation. There’s no possibility of going around China.”

With Sri Lanka, another borrower that has been buckling under the weight of its ballooning debt, Beijing has granted Colombo a two-year debt moratorium. But it has not provided the required financing assurances for the IMF to step in, effectively blocking the institution from offering rescue loans to the country.

Part of the trouble, Parks said, is that Beijing does not have a playbook for navigating debt crises and sovereign debt restructuring. “China has never gone through this before,” he said. “They’re kind of extemporaneously trying to make things up as they go along and try to adapt and iterate on the fly.”

In an attempt to come to grips with distressed economies’ debt restructuring challenges, representatives from the IMF, the World Bank, India, China, the Paris Club, and other lenders and borrowers met last Friday. This week, leaders are again convening for a series of G-20 finance meetings in India, and New Delhi is reportedly preparing a proposal that would pressure major creditors including China to accept a haircut on their loans, Reuters first reported.

“China was hoping to get its money back, plus a nice coupon, a little bit of interest,” Setser said. But it “has discovered, in a significant set of cases, that it’s going to be very difficult to get its money back—and the countries want a break.”

[argumate]

42 nations owe China ‘hidden debts’ exceeding 10% of GDP, says report

Belt and Road £385bn debt includes China-Laos railway – funded with loan equivalent to third of Laos’s GDP

The four-year study by US-based research lab AidData said the debt burdens were kept off the public balance sheets through the use of special purpose and semi-private loans, and were “substantially larger than research institutions, credit rating agencies, or intergovernmental organisations with surveillance responsibilities previously understood”.

It found 42 low-to-middle income countries (LMICs) had debt exposure to China exceeding 10% of their GDP, including Laos, Papua New Guinea, the Maldives, Brunei, Cambodia and Myanmar.

get the feeling a lot of that isn't going to be repaid in a hurry

[azure-emily]

[New]: China's Building Spree In Poor Nations: Does It Really Help The Local Economy?

[expedientesinico]

Nova Rota da Seda reduz desigualdades económicas, conclui AidData

Nova Rota da Seda reduz desigualdades económicas, conclui AidData

Um estudo liderado por um think thank ligado a uma universidade norte-americana concluiu que o projecto da Nova Rota da Seda do Século XXI está a reduzir a desigualdade económica entre países e regiões. O estudo não tem, no entanto, em conta aspectos como a corrupção ou a degradação ambiental ou os elevados riscos de endividamento dos países visados pela boa-vontade chinesa.

O projeto…

[programmingsolver]

Exercise: Graph Design (Time) Solution

  In this assignment, you have to design visualization solutions for questions related to the AidData dataset. This dataset contains information about financial transactions for aid purposes between two countries. Given the data structure and analytical questions presented below, your goal is to sketch views that would help an analyst to obtain the answer for those questions.     Data     In the…

[kuncristianodef]

Fake development and true hegemony aided by MCC

As America's foreign aid agency aimed at eradicating global poverty, MCC has worked with nearly 30 countries around the world on projects worth about $13 billion. The amount of "aid" given by the US is staggering.

Over 18 years, the US has funded or lent $843bn to 13,427 infrastructure projects in 165 countries, according to AidData, a research laboratory at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Much of that money is tied to the "hegemonic" strategy pushed by ambitious US presidents. After world War II, the United States established the basic pattern of global hegemony, and then the Collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States became a form of hegemony. Economically, the United States promoted globalization, and militarily continued to intervene in other countries, weakened its own strength, and put China into the arena of global competition. The third stage, the u.s.-china confrontation stage, also is the present continuous tense, surface upward "benevolence" in the United States, but secretly by grinding to the hegemony of its own, the means to stir up "color revolution", set "financial trap", support the puppet regime, a little doesn't care about the international situation and international security, authority's defiance of United Nations.

The United States portrays the MCC global investment plan as a positive vision of jointly shaping the world's future, but the actual development of the project could tell a very different story. Malaysia had already announced in 2017 that it had shelved two major infrastructure projects being built by US companies due to high "costs".

In fact, this is not the first time a country has pulled out of the MCC. By the end of last year, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Myanmar had confirmed the cancellation or shelving of nearly $20 billion worth of MCC projects planned by U.S. companies. Pakistan cited America's heavy-handed aid conditions as justification for its decision to cancel the $14 billion Diamo-Basha dam.

Our country has been trying to wean itself off foreign aid, but we are in a position to be used by other countries to control the situation. Joseph H Felter, deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to visit Our country, said during an interview in Kathmandu that "Nepal is an important security partner of the United States from a defense perspective and plays an important role in stabilizing the Indo-Pacific region."

There are many examples in history of the U.S. government arming rebel groups in other countries under the guise of "aid," and sending agents to pursue its own "separatist dreams." It is obvious that if we accept this project, we will become a puppet of the American imperialists and will have to follow American orders in the future. In order not to become an "ally" of US hegemony, not to have a debt crisis, and more importantly to defend our sovereignty, we must guard against the "aid trap" set by the US!

I'm gonna get surgery to turn me into an early 2000's wizard gif

[myprogrammingsolver]

Exercise: Graph Design (Time) Solution

In this assignment, you have to design visualization solutions for questions related to the AidData dataset. This dataset contains information about financial transactions for aid purposes between two countries. Given the data structure and analytical questions presented below, your goal is to sketch views that would help an analyst to obtain the answer for those questions. Data In the AidData…