GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
On Belt + Road Initiative (BRI) there are two different views. The West asserts that this is “Debt Trap Diplomacy” and that China’s true purpose is to lull vulnerable Third World Countries into surrendering their assets to China as part of China’s goal to rule the world. This is “Chinese Imperialism working to bring more and more countries within China’s deceptive embrace as it seeks to be the number one international economic power for the rest of the 21st Century.
There is a quite different view expressed by the China-British Business Council assert that “the prevailing view among scholars studying the BRI and how it fits into China’s new globalism is that there is no such “debt trap,” nor is China doing anything untoward to exploit the countries once its firms have invested. Research shows that China has never actually seized an asset from any country owing funds and that Chinese banks are willing to restructure the terms of existing loans.”
China is used to being misrepresented. For example; China is not guilty of genocide against the Uighurs in Xinjiang. China is not guilty of expansionism in Tibet or Taiwan or on the China-India Border. China is not a Party Dictatorship imposing authoritarian rule on its people. The list is long.
China is misrepresented because it is successful. Removing almost 1bn people out of poverty; offering its people a standard of living totally beyond their imagination when the New China came into being in 1949. Allowing 140m of its people to travel overseas in 2019 with no report of even one application for political asylum.
China is on the move. It wants prosperity and stability. It does not seek overseas wars. It does not seek to bring neighbour countries into its orbit of power and does not encourage local Communist Parties to agitate to bring about the installation of friendly governments.
Its success offends Washington and Canberra; London and Paris. After all, China is led by a Communist Party – how can it succeed? But it is succeeding and in the years ahead the World will gasp at the pace of China’s progress. Attacking and undermining China is merely a measure of China’s success.
GRAHAM PERRY
TOMORROW – 27 JANUARY 2022 – CHINA AND HUMAN RIGHTS
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