![]() ![]() In practice, the initiative was less streamlined and more opaque. 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. If you want to have your money back, you want to force debt repayment, that basically means you are going to forgo the goodwill.” “I think China literally has to choose which side it wants to let go. “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. That tension, experts say, has left Beijing facing an impossible trade-off: Can it collect its money without hurting its image? It complicates Beijing’s broader aspirations of extending its influence and forging new relationships through economic deals. Chasing down unpaid debts won’t win many friends. The problem for China is that nobody likes being hounded for money. 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.” 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.įor 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. 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. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen will visit Guatemala and Belize on a trip at the end of this month, but while talks with Honduras continue it is "not appropriate" for Tsai to visit the country, Yui said.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).īut as its borrowers fail to pay up, China is finding that its newfound authority is coming at a price. "It's them who are playing chequebook diplomacy, not us," Yui added, saying they have repeatedly warned Honduras not to believe China's promises. Taiwan is a friend of Honduras and it follows through on its promises, but it has clearly told the country it will not play dollar diplomacy with China, he said. officials have said that Taiwan is a good partner and that Honduras should not fall into China's "trap", Yui added. officials, though added he could not go into details. On Tuesday, Taiwan Vice Foreign Minister Alexander Yui said Reina's remarks had "some inconsistencies" with the facts and Taiwan had "some understanding" of what happened in that meeting with U.S. ![]() Reina has said that the pivot to China was partly because Honduras was "up to its neck" in financial challenges and debt - including $600 million it owes Taiwan. ![]()
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