Xi Jinping says China’s flagship foreign policy initiative, designed to provide loans for infrastructure projects in developing nations, will meet higher standards for environmental protection and safeguards against corruption.
The global lending project came under scrutiny in December 2017, when Sri Lanka, unable to meet debt payments on a port that China constructed, handed the port over to China on a 99-year lease. The incident caused widespread accusations that this was China’s secret strategy: “debt trap diplomacy,” a plan to load developing countries with unmanageable debt, then take over strategic assets when they default.
Belt and Road originally referred to a trail of Chinese infrastructure projects along land and sea routes between China and Europe. But other countries outside the route have since joined and critics, including the Trump administration, have questioned just what China is using the “Belt” for. “We’ve not seen a pattern of deliberate entrapment in order to get some strategic advantage,” Brautigam said.
“The use of the economic instrument both as incentive and as a possible coercive tool is definitely in the line of what Beijing is thinking,” Rolland said. “But ‘debt trap diplomacy’ gives it a level of intention that I’m not sure Beijing had. They probably just seized this opportunity.”China has also shown willingness to cancel or renegotiate debt.
“Countries are now more cautious. They are more apprehensive of the terms that might complicate each project. So now countries are eager to vet the terms of lending from China before they sign on to something,” said Indian scholar Brahma Chellaney. “Negotiations are going to get touchier for China. It is good, because it cuts down on corrupt practices.
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