Helal Uddin Ahmed |
Posted:
Sept. 22, 2021, 8:41 p.m.
Western countries often accuse China of pursuing “debt trap diplomacy”, especially when it comes to low- and middle-income countries. Originally invented by Indian scholar Brahma Chellany in early 2017, ‘debt trap diplomacy’ describes a situation in which a lending country attempts to induce a borrowing country to take out loans in order to strengthen its influence. and increase its influence over that particular country. The terminology is often used against China by Westerners and their allies, as they tend to view this as a tactic of pressure on developing countries in an effort to advance China’s geostrategic interests. In support of this claim, they point out that China has now become one of the main creditors of low-income countries and that its bad debts on the rest of the world have fallen from 1.6 trillion dollars in 2006 to 5. 600 billion dollars. by mid-2020.
In fact, China has provided huge amounts of loans on easy terms to developing states, mainly for the construction of infrastructure such as highways, railways, seaports, power generation, l ‘extraction of minerals, etc. as part of its Belt and Road Initiative or BRI (formerly known as one belt one road or OBOR) covering 70 nations since 2013. This liberal investment credit offered by China has become very popular among countries beneficiaries because it has proven to be an attractive alternative to development aid offered by multilateral agencies dominated by the West. like the World Bank Group and the AfDB. It also appears to have become an effective Chinese tool in combating the massive geopolitical dominance of the United States and its Western allies. Therefore, “Chinese debt trap” propaganda is now being carried out by the Western alliance as part of its global geopolitical strategy.
Lately, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Gwadar Deep Water Port in Pakistan, Hambantota Deep Water Port and ColomboChineseCity in Sri Lanka, China-Maldives Friendship Bridge across the Sea in Maldives, and Kyaukpyu deep-water port and pipeline to Myanmar is cited in this propaganda war by the West. The word “trap” is being applied because Sri Lanka was forced to sanction a 99-year lease from the port of Hambantota to China after failing to increase its utilization rate to the required level. Likewise, it has also not been possible to significantly improve the use of GwadarPort in Pakistan, and optimism for a rapid increase in industrialization around the CPEC highway has yet to materialize. .
Lately there has been some propaganda mainly in Indian media claiming that Bangladesh is also trapped by Chinese debt, although there is no such indication so far. Apparently, this advertising campaign was carried out to reverse the implementation of the Teesta River Water Management Project with the help of China, whose feasibility study was carried out by China after receiving the request from the Bangladesh. Previously, the government of Bangladesh suspended the Ganges dam project in 2017, despite its enormous potential for socio-economic benefits for the country, as various studies show, apparently due to pressure from India.
Unlike Chinese loans, the terms incorporated into the Indian “line of credit” are considered much worse by most experts. Indeed, Indian loans come with conditions precedent to the hiring of contractors or consultants and the provision of tools, equipment and materials from India. Many of these projects have already fallen victim to the insensitivity shown by Indian contractors and consultants, as evidenced by the Rampal coal-fired power plant project. Fortunately, the government of Bangladesh had the guts to dismiss the Chittagong Bay terminal project as credit to India’s suppliers because it would not have served the country’s interests.
It should be recalled that India decided to withdraw from the BCIM (Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar) Economic Corridor Agreement after the BJP government came to power in 2014, although the previous Congressional government l ‘signed (also known as the’ Kunming Initiative ‘) in 2006. Under this agreement, it was planned to establish a communication network from Kunming in China to Kolkata in India via the Indian states of northeast and Sylhet cum Dhaka of Bangladesh. Even the PadmaBridge was part of this initiative, and it was China that offered to help when the World Bank withdrew from its commitment to fund this bridge. Therefore, to call Chinese technical assistance for PadmaBridge a “debt trap” is absolutely absurd, as no Chinese loans are involved here.
Plans were also adopted under the Kunming Initiative to build a deep-water port at Sonadiaisland from Cox’s Bazaar and establish a road and rail link with Kunming by establishing the Chattogram-Cox’s Bazaar railway line. -Ghumdhum. Bangladesh even asked China in 2012 to finance the construction of the deep-water port of Sonadia. But as a follow-up, just as everything was set for the signing of the memorandum of understanding between the two countries during the Prime Minister of Bangladesh’s visit to China in 2014, the country abruptly backed down, apparently due to the Indian pressure.
Speaking of the debt trap, one can cite the example of the Rooppur nuclear power plant under construction with a Russian credit of 12 billion dollars. With a down payment of 113.92 billion taka which would produce only 2,400 megawatts of electricity, this project cannot be qualified as feasible by any standard. There were many alternative technologies whereby the same amount of electricity could be produced at less than half the cost while providing much better security. Building a dangerous nuclear power plant in the middle of one of the world’s most densely populated countries like Bangladesh just because a foreign loan was available can never be justified.
Likewise, another unnecessary project is the next project of the second Bangabandhu satellite, as media reports indicate that even the capacity of the first Bangabandhu satellite has not yet been able to be used. Therefore, this second in the series lacks any justification. The construction of the Rampal power plant by endangering the Sundarban mangrove forest in the coastal belt of Bangladesh also cannot be supported on any land, especially when the current problem with electricity is not generation, but distribution. All of these reckless plans can actually propel Bangladesh into a dreaded debt trap that has been successfully avoided so far.
Dr Helal Uddin Ahmed is retired Assistant Secretary and former Editor-in-Chief of the Bangladesh Quarterly. E-mail: [email protected]
