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China’s distressed loan book: Economy update July 24 2023 1/3 - China has carving up influence across the world, with a loan scheme to fund projects for countries that are resource rich - the aim is to secure trade and supply chains for China using two new trade routes to China, with which to access the resources and creating a means to ship them back to China. They created the strategy in 2013 and have a name for it, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It is estimated that China has funded about 2,970 Belt and Road projects globally with an estimated expenditure of about US$4 trillion, to develop supply chains through road, rail, and ports and supporting infrastructure and operating systems dedicated to feeding the explosion of China’s resource demands. Countries accepting costly Chinese loans, have failed to critically evaluate prospective projects for risks ranging from financial sustainability to potential for corruption before accepting Chinese infrastructure investment. They have ignored repeated warnings that the BRI is just another name for a loan shark enterprise in which China benefits by charging countries over the top prices for contracts, with frequent quality and safety issues, and the work is completed by imported chinese workers. Some loan schemes will take countries over 900 years to repay, all the while China will collect interest payments on the loans, secured frequently on national assets such as ports, pipelines, mines and territory. One may even argue - the loans are designed to fail in order for China to seize ownership of key national assets and territory where it gains a foothold for it’s military, espionage and national interests. Next: details on the loans book and it’s distress 👇