By Adam Taylor
China has never spared any effort to portray its “Belt and Road Initiative,” a grand trillion-dollar-plus global investment plan, as a positive vision for the world. Last year, China released cringeworthy videos featuring children who were, somewhat unrealistically, excited by the idea of infrastructure investment.
“The future’s coming now,” a group of children sang in one clip. “The Belt and Road is how.”
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Another Belt and Road project in Sri Lanka, a deepwater port, is now in the hands of a state-owned Chinese company on a 99-year lease after it failed to attract enough business to make its loan payments. This could swell into a bigger problem. A study released by the Center for Global Development in March suggested that Djibouti, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, the Maldives, Mongolia, Montenegro, Pakistan and Tajikistan would also struggle to repay Chinese Belt and Road loans.
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