Chinese officials have long talked up the “win-win” attributes of their engagement with other developing countries. China wins contracts, markets and access to raw commodities. Its partners win infrastructure and investment, and an ally that, unlike western countries, eschews obvious political conditionality in return for loans. The mutual benefits can indeed be great. A growing number of the recipients of Chinese credit are discovering, however, that the purported “win-win” formula also creates losers.
US officials claim to see a pattern in which Beijing has encouraged indebtedness in order to gain control of strategic assets when debtors default on repayments. Whether China is doing this deliberately or not — and Beijing strongly denies this — the effect in parts of Africa and Asia is noteworthy.
For good reason, Pakistan plans to renegotiate agreements signed under Chinese president Xi Jinping’s Eurasian-African infrastructure rollout known as the Belt and Road Initiative. Malaysia has gone further and cancelled about $3bn-worth of pipeline projects linked to the same Chinese programme. Kuala Lumpur had already suspended $23bn in BRI schemes. The Malaysian government is also investigating links in some of these projects to the scandal-plagued 1Malaysia Development Berhad investment fund,