Monday 15 May 2017

Finally somebody noticed the elephant in the room

I have my doubts and finally somebody noticed the elephant in the room:




India slams China's One Belt One Road initiative, says it violates sovereignty

excerpts:

'In a strongly-worded statement on the eve of the event, which will see participation of more than 60 countries, India escalated its opposition to OBOR, suggesting that the project is little more than a colonial enterprise, leaving debt and broken communities in its wake.


'We are of the firm belief that connectivity initiatives must be based on universally recognised international norms, good governance, rule of law, openness, transparency and equality. Connectivity initiatives must follow principles of financial responsibility to avoid projects that would create unsustainable debt burden for communities; balanced ecological and environmental protection and preservation standards; transparent assessment of project costs; and skill and technology transfer to help long term running and maintenance of the assets created by local communities.'

'Like Sri Lanka, where an unviable Hambantota port project has left Colombo reeling under an $8 billion debt, Pakistan may be headed in the same direction; Laos is trying to renegotiate a railway project, Myanmar has asked for its own renegotiation; a Belgrade-Budapest railway line to be built by China is under investigation by the EU.'


'Chinese infrastructure projects in foreign countries are typically executed by state-owned enterprises, while financing programmes, which initially appear attractive, sour quickly.'

Read in full here.

Well...I pray that the Malaysia Gomen will be able to pay for all the loans we took from China for the various infrastructure projects namely the ECRL etc. on time and do not end up like Sri Lanka.

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