China expects part of Montenegro's territory as Podgorica struggles to repay debt
Aug 31, 2021
Beijing [China] August 31 : Montenegro may be forced to cede part of its territory to Beijing as the country is staggering under USD 1 billion it owes to the Chinese government.
Podgorica had borrowed this mammoth amount in 2015 from Beijing in a bid to pay a Chinese contractor to build a highway allowing faster access to remote parts of the country, France 24 reported.
Now six years later, the work is nowhere near complete and the money has already been spent by the government.
The USD 1 billion loan amount is nearly a fifth the size of Montenegro's entire economy.
Earlier, a few Europeans had claimed that it was a good idea for Podgorica to get a loan of this amount from the Chinese government but now the tiny country is asking the European Union for help to repay the debt -- and the answer, so far, has been no, as reported by The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, China, which is the world's largest creditor, is shockingly using confidentiality clauses barring borrowers from revealing terms and conditions of the engagement or even the existence of the debt itself, as reported by the International Forum for Right and Security.
Last month, Bangladesh had conducted prudent macro-economic management in order to not fall into any 'debt trap' of China and has avoided the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) heavy-handedness.
Bangladesh did not allow Chinese investment in deep-sea ports suitable for a future Chinese Navy presence, as it cancelled the Sonadia deep-sea project and only agreed to a port project in Payra, "approachable only through a 75-kilometre-long canal, a very unlikely place for a naval base," reported S Ramachandran.
