The Belt and Road Initiative
wanted to lease the port to China to pay off some of its other debt to other countries. In this case, none of Sri Lanka's debt to China for the construction of the port was forgiven, demonstrating that China was not leveraging Sri Lanka's debt to itself to undermine its sovereignty (Smith & Wesley-Smith, 2021). This unmistakable sign of the independence of the recipient nation shows how it is not neo- colonialism. Instead, China merchant ports gave $1.12 billion to Sri Lanka to pay off its debt to foreign creditors, where there was a risk of default, unlike with the loans offered by China (Polymatter, 2022). Thirdly, China would not be owning the port outright and would still be bound by Sri Lankan law. As such, it would mean that China would not be allowed to build a naval base there or station personnel without the consent of the Sri Lankan government. Furthermore, little evidence suggests that China intentionally developed this project to snare Sri Lanka into a debt-trap. After all, this project was initially conceived decades ago by Sri Lankan authorities, and it was Sri Lanka who approached China to build it through a fair bidding process involving other entities (Hillman, 2020). While the port of Colombo was nearby, that does not mean there was no need for another port. On the contrary, the port of Colombo was approaching capacity and a new port needed to be constructed quickly to prevent overcapacity, which would have hurt the economy of Sri Lanka. Therefore, the port was not necessarily just another vanity project. It should also be noted that China was not the largest lender in Sri Lanka. That honour lies with the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Sri Lanka's total debt to China was only 10% in 2017; to Japan it is 12%, and 14% of its debt is to the ADB (Polymatter, 2022). Therefore, to assume that China could seize a sovereign port through a debt-trap whilst only being owed 10% of a country's total debt is absurd. This means the case of Hambantota port is not evidence of debt-trap in display. Even back in 2017, Port Minister Mahinda Said, ’ We thank China for arranging this investor to save us from the debt- trap ’ (Onlanka, 2017). In a twist of irony, the opposite has occurred, where China has become a victim of its own debt-trap. Kerry Brown states that 'China has had to commit more money to the project, expose itself to further risk’ (Brown, 2023). China now faces a problem where the number of countries defaulting on debt has caused China to put itself in more debt in order to restructure or bail out countries indebted to China through the BRI. While the BRI has slowed down lending since 2017, there remains $1.1 trillion in debt to be collected, 60% of which is lent to countries in some form of debt distress (Nouwens, 2023). This has caused China to spend $240 billion on bailing out indebted countries and 80% of it was done after 2021, suggesting that China will only continue to bail out more countries (Nouwens, 2023). This is particularly overwhelming for China as it is currently undergoing domestic debt problems, primarily driven by increasing borrowing from corporations. China now has a reduced ability to offer bailouts in the BRI and expects to start being paid back by countries in the BRI that owe it. However, debt within the BRI is shown to be increasingly less sustainable, which means China will have to do more bailouts that it cannot afford. This highlights that the BRI has ultimately riddled China with more problems than benefits. China also lacks the intention to perform debt-trap. Although it may seem reasonable for China to have overseas military bases to exert influence over the world more efficiently, like the USA, it comes at too high of a cost for China. China wants to use the BRI to form exclusionary blocs against its rivals and curry favour with recipient nations instead. Seizing territory would be seen as a politically malicious action by both the international community and the politicians of the recipient nations. This would harm relations between the two countries, which means that China would no longer be able to rely on
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