While infrastructure investment is desperately needed across the region, there's more to the 'Belt and Road' initiative than meets the eye, said Congressman Ted Yoho, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.
Though China has promoted the program as generous win-win assistance to its fellow developing nations, the OBOR seems motivated primarily by self-interest, he said during a Congressional hearing on development finance in Asia.
The Belt and Road projects are financed by Chinese institution at high rates not typically found in the development context conducted by Chinese corporations that are often state-owned enterprise and utilise Chinese labour and material and seem to add little to local economies and can bring unsustainable debt burdens, he said.
The program also seems to be closely aligned with China's strategic and military interests to be more than a mere coincidence, he added.
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