Chinese envoy calls US CPEC warning ‘propaganda and incitement’

ISLAMABAD: China’s top diplomat to Pakistan on Friday rejected a statement by a US official cautioning the Pakistani government that energy and infrastructure projects with Beijing would entangle the South Asian nation in a web of loans and ultimately cripple its economy.
China launched the Belt and Road initiative in 2013, and according to data from Refinitiv, the total value of projects in the scheme is at $3.67 trillion, spanning countries in Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania and South America.
In Pakistan, Beijing has pledged about $60 billion for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
But in recent months, the flagship BRI initiative championed by Chinese President Xi Jinping has become mired in controversy, with some partner nations bemoaning the high cost of projects and western governments seeing it as a means to spread Chinese influence abroad and saddle poor countries with unsustainable debt.
Addressing participants of the 5th China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Media Forum, Ambassador Yao Jing recent comments by US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Alice G. Wells, calling them “a kind of propaganda and incitement.”
“Have you found any occasion when the Chinese government came asking you to pay back its money?” Yao said. “China will never ask for this kind of repayment as long as you are in need.”
Wells told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on Thursday that CPEC would only profit Beijing and the United States offered a better model.
“It’s clear, or it needs to be clear, that CPEC is not about aid,” said the US official, adding that the multibillion-dollar initiative was driven by non-concessionary loans and primarily relied “on Chinese workers and supplies, even amid rising unemployment in Pakistan.”
The corridor “is going to take a growing toll on the Pakistan economy, especially when the bulk of payments start to come due in the next four to six years,” she added.
In response, Yao, flanked by notable Pakistani and Chinese panelists, said Pakistan’s “biggest creditor” was “the West, not China.”
“The United States is the biggest loan taker in the world. Even China has given them credit of $3 trillion. They are extending aid to other countries, but I would like to ask them why they have suspended their assistance [to Pakistan],” the Chinese ambassador said.