My friend Professor Da Hsuan Feng wrote this on March 25, 2022.
Joel
Bloomberg’s Recent Report of the Myth of China’s “Debt-Trap Diplomacy”
by Da Hsuan Feng, March 25, 2022
This morning when I woke up, I saw in the social media publicizing a video by the Bloomberg News with the title: “The Myth of the Chinese Debt – Trap in Africa.” The video gave a detailed account which told the world that the so-called Chinese “debt-trap” in Africa is a myth! Debt-Trap.
Nine years ago, China initiated the “Belt and Road Initiative”, or BRI. It should also be underscored that China building infrastructures in Africa began way before the BRI. Although building infrastructures such as railways, roads, ports, hospitals and highways are one of its missions for countries in Asia, Europe and Africa (now even South America), it of course met with strong criticism headwinds from the West. Perhaps one of such criticisms is “Debt-Trap Diplomacy (DTP),” a term used by Vice President Mike Pence in the final days of the Trump Administration.
Dr. Haiming Liang and I had spent some time in the past several years to investigate what is the nature of Chinese DTP. We published our results on 2nd November, 2018 in the following article with the title “Can we really speak of Chinese “debt traps?” Chinese Debt Traps
In February 6, 2021, two outstanding political scientists, Deborah Brautigam of Johns Hopkins University and Meg Rithmire of Harvard University published an extensive and comprehensive article in the leading journal Atlantic with the title “The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth: The narrative wrongfully portrays both Beijing and the developing countries it deals with.”Debt Trap is a Myth” If one were to follow the research career of Professor Brautigam, one would have found that her palpable and on-the ground field research of how China works in Africa began when she was a graduate student, more than 40 years ago! That is the kind of credibility she has regarding this issue.
It is true that the Western government even from the fledgling stage of the BRI literally became antagonistic towards it. An appreciation of the BRI came almost 8 years later, when President Joe Biden in a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Boris Johnson expounded that the West should also initiate a Western form of the BRI, which now is known as “Build Back Better World”, or B3W. From the Chinese point-of-view, there is nothing better than “imitation is the highest form of flattery!”
With more and more articles in the West, written by extremely credible Western entities such as Professors Brautigam and Rithmire and now Bloomberg News, perhaps one could turn down the Western antagonistic feelings and find ways for the East (BRI) and the West (B3W) to collaborate closely for the betterment of humanity in this 21st century, for a change!