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News AnalysisBeijing’s containment strategy is failing. Instead of abating, China’s financial strains are intensifying.Last month, when concerns first arose with the insolvency of the real estate giant Evergrande, Beijing held back from getting too involved. The nation’s leadership no doubt hoped that the financial waves would calm without much effort on their part.Now with the announcements of more failures and defaults, it is apparent that financial problems are deepening and becoming more widespread. Indeed, the news is beginning to resemble the beginnings of America’s 2008-09 financial crisis. Beijing cannot avoid acting for long.The latest news is disturbing. The first tentative...

Beijing (AFP) - Chinese authorities have ordered dozens of coal mines to expand production amid a nationwide energy crunch, state media reported Friday. Dozens of mines in China's Inner Mongolia, a major coal producing region, were instructed to increase their capacity by more than 98 million tonnes in an official notice not released to the public, the state-run Securities Times reported. Nearly 60 percent of China's energy-hungry economy is fuelled by coal, and the country has struggled to wean itself from the fuel despite its pledge to become carbon neutral by 2060. China has been hit by widespread power cuts...

China is banning the export of phosphate, a major component of commercial fertilizer, through 2022. “Fertilizer prices have increased dramatically in recent years, and the news coming from China will more than likely help this trend continue,” said Theresa Sisung, field crops specialist for the Michigan Farm Bureau. “Farmers should talk to their retailers sooner rather than later to discuss their options for purchasing fertilizer for their 2022 crop needs.” According to John Ezinga, vice president of agronomy at Michigan Agricultural Commodities Inc., the move will adversely affect prices. “Growers are going to feel it,” Ezinga said. “Look at your...

President Joe Biden’s administration is considering providing tariff exemptions for more than 500 products made in China — a potential boon to corporations who continue offshoring to the communist country. This week, United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai said the administration would continue to preserve tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese products first imposed by former President Donald Trump.

The Maldives government is now alarmed at the amount of debt it owes to China. With the coronavirus pandemic, the tourism-dependent islands are now finding it difficult to repay the Chinese debt that the previous government took. India and China have been trying to gain clout in the region. Under Former President Abdullah Yameen’s government, China invested millions of dollars in infrastructure projects under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, in 2018 Yameen faced election defeat. In an interview with BBC, the current Speaker of Parliament Mohamed Nasheed said that the Chinese debt amounts to...

In April 2019, analysts at Rhodium Group in Hong Kong sat down to assess the financial viability of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). What they found surprised them. The second Belt and Road Forum had just wrapped up in Beijing and policymakers in the mainland and beyond were starting to voice their concerns. Western leaders feared that China was drowning the emerging world in general, and Africa in particular, in a new wave of debt. Officials in Beijing pushed back against charges of ‘debt-trap diplomacy’, but they were beginning to stick.China had internal reasons to fret. From the outset,...

A centuries-old puzzle, sometimes used as a practical joke, is the Chinese finger trap. It’s a simple woven bamboo tube into which an unsuspecting victim puts both index fingers but then cannot release themselves from the tight bondage of the tube, no matter how hard he pulls. This brings to mind the "one belt, one road" project advanced by China all over the world, especially in Africa, South America, and the poorer parts of Asia. A poor country, grateful for Chinese aid, readily accepts the offer of a road or bridge. After completion, China asks for payment as per the...

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka’s Parliament on Thursday passed a law installing a powerful economic commission to administer a huge Chinese luxury oceanside development after altering elements of the bill ruled unconstitutional by the country’s top court. The bill to create the Colombo Port City Economic Commission passed with a 149-58 vote in Sri Lanka’s 225-member Parliament. The CHEC Port City Colombo company, a unit of China Communications Construction Company, invested $1.4 billion for reclamation of land and construction of infrastructure adjacent to the Port of Colombo. In return, it obtained the right to use 62 hectares (153 acres)...

On April 21, the Australian government intervened to cancel the state of Victoria’s controversial Belt and Road deal with Beijing stating that the arrangement was inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy and national interests. The move was criticised by a Chinese diplomat who noted it would not help improve bilateral relations which became tense over the last year as Australia refused to kowtow to economic coercion and took measures to protect itself from Beijing’s interference. While Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ state Labor government has been relatively silent since the federal government’s intervention, many experts and politicians who support classical liberal values...

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said at the G7 summit that Italy is reassessing China’s investments in the country “carefully,” shifting away from the pro-Beijing policies of the previous government. Draghi expressed concern about the Chinese Communist regime. “It’s an autocracy that does not adhere to multilateral rules and does not share the same vision of the world that the democracies have,” he said at a press conference of the Group of Seven (G7) summit on Sunday. While the newcomer of the G7 admitted the importance of economic cooperation, Draghi noted the difference between the Chinese regime and the West....

In two separate incidents on July 14 and 17, Chinese nationals working on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Pakistan and Mali were attacked. Among them, nine Chinese nationals in Pakistan died, and three in Mali were kidnapped.According to Dawn, a local news network in Pakistan, on July 14, a bus full of laborers on its way to a local construction site, exploded and fell into a ravine killing 13 and injuring 28. Among the 13 killed, nine were Chinese nationals. They were heading towards the site of a tunnel being built as part...

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is facing growing opposition from participating countries as their debts associated with Chinese projects mount, according to a recent study. Launched in 2013 by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the BRI might be losing its impetus due to a debt-based backlash, according to a study from AidData, a research lab at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute.The study analyzed 13,427 projects backed by China in more than 165 countries over 18 years. The projects’ total value amounts to $843 billion.AidData found that 35 percent of BRI’s projects dealt with implementation problems, “such as corruption scandals,...

China is poised to make an exclusive entry into post-U.S. Afghanistan with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source close to government officials in Afghanistan told The Daily Beast that Kabul authorities are growing more intensively engaged with China on an extension of the $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)—the flagship project of BRI, which involves the construction of highways, railways and energy pipelines between Pakistan and China—to Afghanistan.

California's state pension invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Chinese state-owned enterprises linked to the People's Liberation Army, according to records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) had more than $3 billion invested in Chinese companies, including 14 state-controlled enterprises blacklisted by the Trump administration, as of June 2020. Many of these companies are funding the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project Beijing is using to expand its geopolitical and military influence. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.), who recently praised a Chinese-owned media company for its "journalistic integrity," has not...

Shanghai Academy acts as a front for Chinese spy recruitment, according to FBI The Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington, D.C., think tank, partnered with a Shanghai policy center that the FBI has described as a front for China’s intelligence and spy recruitment operations, according to public records and federal court documents. The Brookings Doha Center, the think tank’s hub in Qatar, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in January 2018, the institution said. The academy is a policy center funded by the Shanghai municipal government that has raised flags within the FBI. The partnership...

NAIROBI, Kenya — When Chinese engineers flew home in January for the Lunar New Year, few in Africa would have imagined that coronavirus outbreak was about to ground planes, upend supply lines and freeze work on dozens of Chinese-built roads, railways, ports and power stations. Many of the engineers haven’t returned. Construction sites fell silent. And now the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a global recession that threatens the colossal international loan program that is a symbol of China’s growing prestige and a centerpiece of President Xi Jinping’s reign. The Belt and Road Initiative — China’s effort to finance nearly half...

A Taliban spokesperson has praised Beijing as a “main partner” and financer as the group moves to build a national governance and develop Afghanistan’s economy.“China is our main partner and represents for us a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity because it is willing to invest and rebuild our country,” Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid told the Italian newspaper la Repubblica on Sept. 1.Mujahid made the remarks as the militant group, which took over Afghanistan in dramatic fashion last month, celebrated the final withdrawal of American troops from the country, putting an end to a 20-year-long conflict.But money has become a pressing concern...

China has withdrawn its BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) funding for railway projects in Bangladesh, after the recipient country proposed significant cuts in costs. This happened amidst increasing tension between the two countries.According to media reports, the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina found that Chinese companies were charging three times the normal price for construction, and slashed $5.72 billion from the China-funded Akhaura-Sylhet and Joydebpur-Ishwardi railway projects that are part of the BRI agreement signed between the two countries.The main conditions of the contract with China required that the contractors of the railway construction be selected by the Chinese...

Diana West, author of... Death of the Grown-up, American Betrayaland The Red Thread: A Search for Ideological Drivers Inside the Anti-Trump Conspiracy...tweets the following brief timeline: 1/10/17 #Obama WH science office issues guidelines to permit research which "could produce a potential pandemic pathogen (an enhanced PPP)." 1/12/17 #Fauci declares 'there will be surprise outbreak" during Trump admin. https://gumc.georgetown.edu/gumc-stories/global-health-experts-advise-advance-planning-for-inevitable-pandemic/ Fauci's quote on 'surprise outbreak during Trump's administration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=197&v=DNXGAxGJgQI&feature=emb_logo direct link to Diana West's tweet

The United States must revamp policies toward Africa on improving trade, fighting terrorism, and providing financial assistance to stave off the growing influence of China and Russia on the continent, White House national security adviser John Bolton said. “Great power competitors, namely China and Russia, are rapidly expanding their financial and political influence across Africa,” Bolton said Thursday in an address at The Heritage Foundation in Washington. “They are deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the United States.”[snip]“The predatory practices pursued by China and Russia stunt economic growth in Africa; threaten...