The President’s China burden

of the usual funding routes from EU and other donors.

But in being uncharted territories, the China pivot is not without serious dangers.

China’s intrusion into the sovereignty of states that deal with it are not as upfront and interventionist as the Americans and Europeans. China has not launched any foreign strikes into other countries the way the US, the United Kingdom and France have done in Syria, or invaded other countries like what the US did to Iraq and the Soviet Union did to Afghanistan. It also doesn’t meddle in the internal political business of sovereign states.

This is perhaps why the China pivot is appealing to many supporters of the President, in the sense that it is consistent with his anti-interventionist stance vis-à-vis foreigners. A distant China, bearing only gifts, without making any political commentary on our own internal affairs, resonates well with the President’s image of one who is over-protective of our sovereignty and would not allow foreign nationals to meddle with how we deal with our own problems. This is a President of a government that recently ordered the investigation and arrest, and now the cancellation of the visa, of an Australian nun who has been active in antigovernment protests. This is the same government that barred the entry of a European parliamentarian because of his anti-government pronouncements.

However, it is already a wellknown fact that China is involved in debt-trap diplomacy. The image of non-interventionism and respect for the sovereignty of states can conveniently hide the steep price a country will have to pay if it defaults on the debts it owes to China. Indeed, China does not blatantly intervene in the affairs of other states. But it offers cheap but predatory infrastructure loans which can lead to mounting debt and, based on the experience of countries which have already availed of these loans, were unable to generate additional income and employment as promised.

In 2017, Sri Lanka’s failure to pay its $1 billion loan forced it to hand over one of its ports to companies owned by the Chinese government. Djibouti, an African country, is now set to do the same and hand over to a company with links to Beijing one of its ports. In addition, seven other countries face the risk of falling victim to this so-called debt trap diplomacy, namely Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Maldives, Mongolia, Pakistan and Montenegro.

People also perceive China as hands-off in terms of our internal policies. We do not see Chinese nationals joining rallies against human rights abuses, or Chinese parliamentarians condemning the Philippine government on matters that do not concern them directly and are purely internal concerns.

But what we must not forget is that while China may not have civil rights activists who speak against the war on drugs, they have nationals who are part of the illegal drug trade in the country. They may not have the likes of the Australian nun who joined anti- government rallies, but certainly they have people who are running shabu laboratories or are involved in other criminal activities.

And lest we forget, unlike the countries listed above that have already fallen into the debt trap and for which they have already ceded, are about to cede, or facing the threat of losing control of their territories, China has already physically occupied some territories to which we have legitimate claims and has in fact already threatened the integrity of our borders.

We can only shudder at the thought of the scenario should we default on our loans.

Thus, the President’s burden is ensuring that our dealings with China will not lead us to fall into its debt-trap diplomacy.