Beware of China’s generous gifts
expensive and, as government loans go, come with more strings attached. More ominously, Sri Lanka’s experience shows that China has no compunction about pressing its advantage once a borrower defaults on its debts.
The best rationale Malacañang’s economic managers have managed to cobble so far is that loans from the Chinese government are faster in disbursing. But, it must be pointed out, other lenders would disburse funds just as quickly, or even faster, if the country agreed to less equitable terms as well.
The growing international experience with the bitter pill of Chinese debt diplomacy should serve as a blazing red flag to Malacañang: The Philippines may be better off funding its infrastructure projects through loans from the governments of Japan, South Korea, the European Union or the United States. In fact, based on the cost alone, anyone but China. Or, the Duterte administration can use its political will to remove the bureaucratic inertia that is preventing the private sector from bringing its own resources to bear on much-needed public infrastructure projects.
Mythology tells of how Troy became a vassal state of Greece after the weary Trojans ignored warnings against accepting too-good-to-be-true presents from covetous neighbors. That scenario, or a variation of it, is happening to many countries around the world on the back of China’s relentless cash campaign. The Philippines must resist becoming one of them.