Posted on 07/21/2018 1:15:26 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
PODGORICA (Reuters) - Perched atop massive cement pillars that tower above Montenegro’s picturesque Moraca river canyon, scores of Chinese workers are building a state-of-the-art highway through some of the roughest terrain in southern Europe.
The government has described the 165 km (103 mile) highway, with its imposing bridges and deep-cut tunnels, as the construction of the century and a pathway to the modern world.
It is designed to link the port of Bar on Montenegro’s Adriatic coast to landlocked neighbor Serbia. But once the first, challenging 41 km stretch through mountains north of the capital is completed, the government faces a difficult choice.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
And that is...?
So is this a long term plan by China to get countries around the world in debt to them? If it is it’s working.
In related news:
"Cuomo resurrected the decades-old idea of linking Long Island to Westchester, Connecticut or the Bronx via a bridge or tunnel across the Long Island Sound in 2016, pledging to fund a feasibility study in his State of the State address that year.
In January, the Department of Transportation released the completed study, which found an 18-mile tunnel from Long Island to Rye or Port Chester in Westchester County is technically feasible but would carry a hefty price tag of anywhere from $31.5 billion to $55.4 billion.
"It would be underwater," Cuomo, who is seeking re-election this year, said in his 2018 State of the State in January.
https://www.lohud.com/story/news/politics/politics-on-the-hudson/2018/06/28/long-island-westchester-tunnel-dropped/743821002/
They are doing the same thing to the Afghani’s. Who, as we all know, continue to rob us blind and are now becoming puppets to the Chinese. However, it seems that there are looming signs that the Chinese are is as bad shape financially as any other place, they are just better at manipulating their currency and hiding all of it. It would appear they are destined for an epic collapse. A friend of mine was an MSG at the embassy in Beijing and traveled quite a bit, through China. Said, once you get out of the major cities, it was level of poverty that was hard to imagine.
On the other hand, once again the media wants to paint our President as the devil for a comment about Montenegro and it’s affiliation w/ NATO. And wouldn’t you know it, the guy is, RIGHT .... AGAIN !!! Imagine that.
“Cuomo resurrected the decades-old idea of linking Long Island to Westchester, Connecticut or the Bronx via a bridge or tunnel across the Long Island Sound in 2016, pledging to fund a feasibility study in his State of the State address that year.
There already IS a bridge from Long Island to the Bronx, you dumb-asses. You gonna build a bridge three miles to the east, and ten miles longer?
Read more at Reuters . . . I didn't click on it either.
Must read later.
This is interesting. I bet the resolution is that China will take ownership of the port in exchange for loan forgiveness or interest reduction. In any event, China gets a port on the Adriatic Sea. Not a shot fired.
They are all worried about an 80% debt-to-GDP ratio?!? Try 105% for the USA! This project sounds a lot like the CA Jerry Brown HSR debacle!
The U.S. did similar things, on a smaller scale, in central America.
The roads are not maintained, the bridges collapse, the pavement deterorates, and the temporary access allowed pirate loggers to deforest the areas.
Overall, a disaster with almost no benefit.
The U.S. did it mostly without any loan guarantees.
This has allowed them to develop in ways that may not have been possible without access to China’s vast foreign exchange reserves. But some countries, such as Sri Lanka, Djibouti and Mongolia, have found themselves weighed down by debt and ever more reliant on Beijing’s largesse.
One of the key points in the article. China has used our trade imbalance to buy influence around the world within small and corrupt governments.
Some may see BRI as a new trade tool for China, I still see it as a military initiative that can double as infrastructure for economic benefits.
China needs a place to put their cash, other than empty apartment buildings in China. They also need employment for their people. So they are embarking on a road-building project.
“This one found the highway was viable, according to the government. But this study has never been made public and attempts by Reuters to see it were unsuccessful.”
This always seems to happen when you get SHIFTY projects like this, and certainly the same for the vaunted “Public Private Partnerships”, which is also mentioned in this article.
Just HANG UP THIS CRAP and shine light on the projects. There are plenty of well-qualified road planners and they can tell tell you, pretty damn accurately, whether the plan is a white elephant. And, as the article states, that was the case here - but this secret little study (and lots of bribes, no doubt) is what they relied on.
You’re probably correct.
China has about as much debt as we have, if not more.
Typical Asiatic blackmail...
Chinese loans are crack for poor countries.
Prolly feels the need to name a bridge after his mother, too....
Yes, you can imagine, that not many people want to actually drive the switchbacking roads of Montenegro — I assume a lot of switchbacks, the way the article describes them — so there would not be a lot of drivers around to use the new highway and pay the tolls. Many, if not most, people there probably walk to local shops and workplaces or take the train.
Simply improving the roads and digging a few tunnels to avoid dangerous stretches would probably be better for a population roughly 1/10 that of the state of Maryland.
Technically, there are actually three: Throgs Neck, Whitestone and Triborough. But Mr. Cuomo has delusions of grandeur about a tunnel (not a relatively inexpensive bridge) between L.I. and Connecticut that will cost up to more than $55B.
The moral of the story is: don’t elect Delusional Democrats.
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