By Monica Showalter March 13, 2019
As patients die in hospitals and ordinary Venezuelans scrounge for water from sewers based on a horrific going-on-six-days nationwide blackout, China hasn't been idle, watching the spectacle unfold. The Venezuelan socialist regime's incompetence and neglect may have created a humanitarian crisis all right, but more important to China, the blackout also cut off Venezuela's oil production. That's what Venezuela uses in order to pay its $23-billion pile of bailout loans back to China. So, six days after the crisis, China's state-owned CGTN reports that China is willing to "help":.............
The cash paid to keep the tyrant in Caracas afloat was bad enough, but China doesn't just loan money out of the goodness of its heart.
It typically uses its loan money to get third-world socialist regimes "hooked," same way a drug-dealer does to an addict. It's called the "Belt and Road Initiative." As these socialist nations, which can't draw investment the normal way due to their hostile business environments, eventually default, China's loan structures enable China to take over for strategic purposes. China has just gotten its hands on a 99-year lease for a deep-water port in Sri Lanka, for one. It will undoubtedly have similar takeover clauses in Venezuela as the country staggers back to some version of normalcy. China's help is going to come with strings. As I wrote here, last May, China's aid isn't as free as it looks. And Venezuela's socialist coeval, Ecuador, has already found itself almost completely sold out to China...............To Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment