From the article:
In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced what we now know as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as a $900 billion global project that would seek to connect international trade routes in a modern day version on the Silk Road. As a result of this project, China has emerged as a relatively new yet significant actor in the Western Balkans...
The clearest case of debt trap diplomacy in the Western Balkans is that of China’s highway project in Montenegro. This highway is designed to connect the Montenegrin port city of Bar with Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and largest city in the Western Balkans. China agreed to build this highway for the Montenegrin government despite the fact that two separate feasibility studies both concluded that this project is in no way economically viable. The first of three phases of this project has cost Montenegro roughly 1.3 billion euro, which is equivalent to a quarter of its 2018 GDP. The loan that Montenegro took out with the Export-Import Bank of China has caused its GDP-to-debt ratio to increase to just over 80 percent. This increase has led the Center for Global Development to conclude that Montenegro’s debt problem is “enormous” and that Montenegro is very susceptible to debt distress and loan default. It is unclear what exactly will happen if Montenegro continues to fall further into China’s debt trap. In the past, China has used its leverage to seize control of the asset it was initially contracted to construct, as it did in Sri Lanka, and it has also forced countries to adopt more pro-China foreign policy positions, as it did with Panama. Regardless of China’s intentions for Montenegro, the EU will be hesitant to adopt a new member state that is both in a position to be exploited by China on a host of issues and has an ever-worsening debt situation.
