The decision to join the Silk Road multiplied China’s exports to Italy but did not have the same effect on Italian exports to China, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said. “The issue today is: how to walk back [from the BRI] without damaging relations [with Beijing], because it is true that China is a competitor, but it is also a partner,” Crosetto added. Italy signed up to the BRI under a previous government, becoming the only major Western country to have taken such a step.
It’s crazy to me for how slowly people are getting the wake up call on what was obviously a debt trap from the start. Corrupt politicians have sold their people out for a briefcase full of money and some folks are still defending it because they simply refuse to face the truth. I know it’s hard to admit you got scammed but damn.
Which is exactly what Beijing bet on from the beginning. You see the way Beijing handles these things is by getting a harbor or two and maybe a military base in your country.
You underestimate the Chinese craving for admiration. The belt and road initiative was mainly that: A signal to the people in China that said “We are back on the world stage and now we are the guys that help others to develop”. Sure, it may also have been debt trap, but other than populist voices like to portray it, that was not the actual goal.
I stand by my obversavtion that China never meant to help anyone but themselves and it was always designed as a scam. It’s never really been about admiration as they never actually tried to gain it. It’s just mountains of empty promises from the start. They do care a lot about ‘saving face’ but that has a different meaning than true admiration. Many economic experts have warned about the BRI early on. Even those who had otherwise good things to say about China. That project stood out as being primed for a scam from the very beginning.
A scam may constitute of a contract based on asymmetric information or on the willfull misleading by one-party about their desire to fulfill. You can call it many things, and judge it however you like, but it does not qualify as a scam by any definition that I could think of. Surely: the benefits may be heavily skewed to the Chinese side. However, they made an offer that was easy to reject.