By Gordon Watts
From the article:
These are surreal days. Speaking at a seminar to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his benchmark Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping stressed it was not just a “China club.”
On the contrary, it was “open” and “inclusive,” with a shiny new image for a shiny new era of “cooperation.”
“The Belt and Road is an economic cooperation initiative, not a geopolitical or military alliance,” Xi said in Beijing on Monday. “It is an open and inclusive process, and not about creating exclusive circles or a China club.”
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In a report released earlier this year entitled Examining the Debt Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative from a Policy Perspective, the Center for Global Development revealed that 23 countries could be prone to “debt distress.”
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