Pakistan is a lesson in how China can fumble the politics of its Belt and Road Initiative
frenzy had contributed by pumping up domestic demand, pushing up the value of the currency and sucking in imports. In 2018 the bubble burst, the Pakistani rupee slid and the economy slowed sharply. Mr Khan, cap in hand, garnered help from China with conditions attached.was always a corridor only in name, says Andrew Small of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a Washington think-tank. Pumping oil or gas over high-altitude passes would cost too much and was never seriously considered.
Historically China’s intercourse with South-East Asia has been by sea. That, now, is changing. In recent years China’s industrial centre of gravity has shifted away from the coast towards the south-west, centred around Chongqing and Kunming, capital of Yunnan province. A priority of China’s belt is to improve cross-border transport. It squares with’s desire for regional integration. As elsewhere, the soft infrastructure lags the hard, particularly at borders.
How this all plays out in Cambodia can be seen in the seaside town of Sihanoukville. It was once a sleepy, beach-flanked city beloved of holidaying Cambodian families and Western backpackers. Then the Chinese came. In 2015 Hun Sen’s government designated the city as one of Cambodia’s flagshipprojects. Gambling for foreigners was legalised in Sihanoukville, both online and in new casinos. Firms from China were welcomed.
More buildings are in a state of hasty construction than are completed—last year a high-rise collapsed, killing 28 workers. The city’s drains cannot cope. Maggie Eno, who runs the M’Lop Tapang school for street children, shows how monsoon floods turned the ground floor and playground into seas of raw sewage. Brothels operate out of plyboard shanties on construction sites. Thugs murder rivals in gangland killings, dumping victims’ bodies out of cars in the middle of town.
Perhaps the worst is over. Last year the Cambodian government, reacting to the chaos at last, banned most gambling. In one of the town’s casinos recently, a Chinese construction foreman said he was having one last fling before heading home. The bubble has burst. But it will be many years before the city recovers.
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