Lee Jones

The myth of China’s ‘debt-trap diplomacy’

Photo by Thomas Peter - Pool/Getty Images

It is hard to remember now, but just five years ago David Cameron’s No. 10 was declaring a ‘golden era’ of Sino-British ties. Now the US sees China as a ‘strategic rival’ and Britain has joined a growing coalition of Western nations attempting to limit Beijing’s power. There are certainly good reasons to be wary of China’s regime. But there’s also a clear risk that growing Sinophobia distorts the reality of Chinese behaviour, which is often far less strategic than is widely supposed.

This is particularly clear with respect to China’s ‘belt and road initiative’, an attempt to build a rail and maritime trade network across the globe. Launched in 2013, the belt and road is Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy. Hawkish pundits generally depict the project as a grand strategy aimed at reshaping the world in China’s image. In truth, it is a rather loose, inchoate framework, primarily seeking to maintain China’s economic growth through promoting infrastructure connectivity with Eurasia and east Africa.

Anti-China hawks from New Delhi to Washington claim that the belt and road is all about ‘debt-trap diplomacy’. Beijing supposedly offers developing countries debt-fuelled infrastructure projects, knowing they will fall into debt distress and enabling China eventually to seize the asset thereby extending its strategic reach.

The reality is that China’s political system is highly fragmented and decentralised

The problem is – as shown in my new report for Chatham House, co-authored with Shahar Hameiri – this narrative simply isn’t true.

First, it gets China wrong. Western observers often see China as monolithic: a tightly-controlled, authoritarian regime, capable of the sort of coherent, strategic planning that our hapless elites can only dream of. The reality is that China’s political system is highly fragmented and decentralised – notwithstanding Xi’s efforts to improve coordination and purge corrupt officials.

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