Senior Australian officials believe Pacific Island and Asian nations are reassessing the value of receiving Chinese foreign aid after seeing Beijing’s heavy-handed treatment of them when they seek debt relief.
As a new US State Department report, as revealed by The Australian Financial Review, warns China is creating a “debt trap” for smaller nations in a bid to upend the strategic balance of power, officials in Canberra hope that greater public exposure of Beijing’s tactics will shame the Chinese into changing its predatory practices and ultimately forgive the loans.
Regional leaders had their eyes opened after Tonga’s experience following Cyclone Gita this year. While China has lent or gifted hundreds of millions of do…
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