However, loans from China accounted for only about 10 per cent of Sri Lanka’s total foreign debt in 2020. The largest portion – about 30 per cent – can be attributed to international sovereign bonds. Japan actually accounts for a higher proportion of their foreign debt, at 11 per cent.
Defaults over China’s infrastructure-related loans to Sri Lanka, especially the financing of the Hambantota port, are being cited as factors contributing to the crisis.
But these facts don’t add up. The construction of the Hambantota port was financed by the Chinese Exim Bank. The port was running losses, so Sri Lanka leased out the port for 99 years to the Chinese Merchant’s Group, which paid Sri Lanka US$1.12 billion.
So the Hambantota port fiasco did not lead to a balance of payments crisis (where more money or exports are going out than coming in), it actually bolstered Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves by US$1.12 billion.
So, what are the real reasons for the crisis?
The above is from an article in CNA by R Ramakumar is a Professor of Economics at Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
From the few numbers given it clearly showed that the debt trap which Sri Lanka is suffering is not from loans from China. China's loan accounts for only 10% of the total debt of Sri Lankan. Japan's loan to Sri Lanka is more than China at 11%, why no one calls it a debt trap? Mischievous agenda from the Americans is the reason. They lied and spread disinformation to smear China without telling the real numbers.
If debt to China is only 10%, Japan 11%, then the bulk of the debt, the real debt trap of 79% came from where? It is the IMF, the biggest creditor of Sri Lanka, the organisation that is causing all the woes of the Sri Lankans. This is another perfect example of the treacherous Americans pointing fingers, making wild allegations when they are the real culprits. Sri Lanka's debt trap is caused by loans from the IMF.
What about the infamous lie of debt trap caused by the Hambantota Port? Yes, Sri Lanka took a big loan from China's Exim Bank and unable to pay back the loan. But Sri Lanka turned it into a revenue by leasing the port to China and was paid US$1.12 billion for it. Where is the debt, where is the debt trap when it is a plus for Sri Lanka? Why the evil Americans still spreading this lie of debt trap because of the port? Why don't the Americans admit that the debt trap came from the IMF, an American controlled organisation?
Leasing the port to China is a profitable business like Djibouti leasing its land to the Americans, and a few other nations as military bases. It is pure business, earning rents. What is wrong with that? Djibouti is still an independent country and proud of it, unlike the semi colonies of the American Empire, the Japanese, South Koreans, and the Europeans, that have all lost their independence and being controlled by the Americans and have to host American bases in their own countries, cannot say No to the Americans, and have to pay for the Americans' military presence in their homeland.
When would the American and western media stop their fake news about this debt trap? When would all the hostile media and so called journalists, reporters, anal-lysts stop smearing China with this fake debt trap lie? If there is a real debt trap issue, no one would be joining the BRI, the whole of Africa would not be taking loans from China.
Fortunately the leaders of these nations are not stupid and would not be led by the nose by the evil Americans and the West with their disgusting lies and disinformation.
There is no debt trap from China, only white men's lies.
11 comments:
The real Debt Traps actually comes from the IMF, an USA-Controlled organisation, that has been draining them off their incomes.
The real debt trap comes from the IMF and World Bank. Many countries have been trapped like Argentina.
Of course, in Sri Lanka's case, this is blamed on China and is also never going to be about the debt trap created by the IMF. They never miss a good opportunity to demonise China.
I would think this is a blessing in disguise and is also a good opportunity for China to set the record straight and expose the fabrication, lies and misinformation that the West is trying to pull wool over people's eyes. It is an opportunity to destroy the IMF's reputation once and for all. In any case the IMF and World Bank's reputation has already been heavily tarnished. countries are turning to the AIIB for help.
Argentina's journey into odious debt trap set by the IMF would be a good start. Argentina is now turning to Russia and China, after being pushed under the bus by corrupt politicians into taking IMF loans that is now crippling their economy. That is how the West go about controlling poor countries with debts to put them under their thumb and do as they are told.
Good old Mahathir saw it coming and refused the debt trap offered by the IMF.
Sri Lanka is still up to its neck from the debt trap of IMF. And see who it turned to? No, Sri Lanka would not go to the IMF or World Bank. It turned to China and India for help.
The Sri Lankans are not stupid. If IMF and World Bank are so good, they would be crawling over there. They knew the smell of the IMF and World Bank, having been caught in their debt traps, would look for countries that could help them with fixing them into bigger debt traps.
The IMF debt trap is all for keeping countries down and beholden to them forever. China's loan can be seen to be spent on infrastructure developments to give debtor countries avenues to move out of poverty. The motives are diametrically different. What is conjured out of evil minds cannot be good. Hope the world learns well and start waking up.
Very good leh
Sharing . . .
Below is a letter which The Straits Times has declined to publish. It is its prerogative not to. But I believe the principles which I have laid out are important, especially when the declared official position is that Singapore will not take sides in the intensifying geopolitical confrontation between the West and China (and now Russia?).
Hence the decision to post it here:
I refer to the assertion, made in the pages of this newspaper of late by ST's own correspondents as well as other commentators, that a sovereign country has the right to decide which security alliance or arrangement it wishes to join.
I fully endorse this principle. But I wish these same writers had also added, in the same breath, that this right must be accorded to countries bordering the United States, like Cuba or Venezuela, without their being put in mortal fear of an American military response or not so covert attempts at regime change.
By the same token, they should not have omitted mention of the US invasion of Iraq and many other sovereign nations each time they wrote of the need to condemn the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
In saying this, I am not, emphatically not, speaking in tacit support of the flagrant Russian violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity -- or trying to justify it. And no, I have not fallen for Russian or Chinese narratives. Nor do I accept the implied premise that the Western narrative is the correct one.
It is not pedanctic to point out the glaring omissions. To do so is to underline the importance of being complete and balanced in any reporting or commentary, especially when the writer does not want to be seen to be taking sides in what is clearly a full-spectrum confrontation between the West and Russia.
If the New York Times or the BBC has been less than fair and objective, then that is likely to be regarded as par for the course as they are seen as the mouth-pieces for the Anglophone power centres. Ditto Sputnik News for Moscow.
But this cannot be the case for Singaporean commentators/writers whose discerning and informed readers, while accepting that they do have a right to their opinions, would expect them to be balanced, not selective, in serving up the facts.
That is not too much to ask.
-- L.F.
Excellent! An excellent translation! Well done!
Singapore MSM's obvious pro-West bias is now so extreme that it won't even publish its own ex-editor's letter calling for balanced commentary!
Which country China has contributed helped developed the most? Is it Kenya? I'm just curious.
Quite sure it is Dem Rep of Congo. PRC gives money a lot of money to DRC whereas the US only give money to Germany, Japan, Taiwan and S.Korea. One look and you can see how the DRC economy is booming while the 4 american kakia is sinking due to Russia sanction.
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