China is funding dual-use infrastructure projects from the Pacific to the Horn of Africa, fuelling 'debt traps' that will give Beijing leverage to gain strategic and military power. It is all part of Beijing’s 'Belt and Road' initiative - also known as 'One Belt, One Road' (OBOR) - a $8 trillion plan to create a new Silk Road with sea and land links across Asia and Africa to Europe. OBOR will encompass some 64 nations and an estimated 7,000 infrastructure projects. And this real estate will need to be defended.
Projects costing around $900 billion are currently underway or in the planning stage, paid for with billion-dollar loans from Beijing. Loans that cannot be serviced leave governments in the debt trap. China is leveraging economic debt for strategic advantage, tilting the balance of power from the US and its allies towards Asia, according to a report by Harvard Kennedy School scholars for the US State Department
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