There’s been pushback against the “debt-trap diplomacy” concept and recent research has shown the Chinese are tough negotiators and can cancel a loan if a borrower takes an adverse political stand, but there’s no “smoking gun” evidence of a predatory program behind China’s loans.
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There is an existing infrastructure fund for Asia, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) but the U.S. declined to join it in 2015 when a man named Joe Biden was vice-president. Washington was concerned the AIIB would compete with the World Bank and extend China’s influence and it tried unsuccessfully to persuade allies like the UK, Canada, and Australia to not join.
Pakistan Hydro Facility Receives ADB Funding
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Can the West stop China in Central Asia?
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“Military conflict in the Pacific, which would certainly involve Australia, is becoming more likely,” Greg Sheridan, The Australian’s Foreign Editor proclaimed on the front page of the paper in March this year.
But what sort of a war with China is he and his like-minded cold-warriors trying to provoke with their constant stream of articles predicting a war?
Perhaps one like those war games you find online where the Chinese would line up in yellow and the United Sates troops, dressed in red, white and blue with Australia at its side, faces off on the beaches of Taiwan? Or maybe our cannon-armed sailing ships would take on their junks in the Taiwan Strait?