China's Belt and Road Initiative is becoming a massive debt trap

Beijing is creating debt traps to turn countries into vassal states

For many participants in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the major foreign economic policy initiative of the “China Dream”, is becoming a debt trap. This is resonant of one of China’s major methods of dealing with weaker “barbarians” as outlined in an earlier column (“China’s geopolitical resurgence”, December 20, 2013). The tool was “induced economic dependence”. This was used to convert the self-sufficient nomad warriors, the Xiongnu, after 140 years of protracted war, into vassals, once they were made dependent on initially free Han-produced goods, which were later converted into “exchange for services rendered”, making the Xiongnu de facto