China loses its temper amid building tension

China has blown up at Australia, accusing a prominent senator of attacking it with “unwarranted invective” and “blatant slander”.
By Sam Clench

Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells has come under fire from China over her remarks.

CHINA has lost its temper with an Australian senator, accusing her of attacking it with “unwarranted invective” and “blatant slander”.
On Friday, Liberal senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells issued a grim warning in The Australian newspaper, saying China was using “debt-trap diplomacy” to build its influence among the Pacific Island nations neighbouring Australia.
She claimed China was tempting poor countries with loans they couldn’t afford to repay — a strategy far less sinister than military expansion, but no less effective.
“Today, the sovereign threat is less confrontational but the debt-trap diplomacy just as insidious,” Ms Fierravanti-Wells wrote.
“Pacific countries need to use limited government reserves to meet their loan commitments to avoid defaulting. 

“Domestic spending and important social programs are jeopardised.
“Consequently, the internal stability of these countries may be affected and greater demand is placed on overseas development assistance from countries such as Australia.

“In short, Australian taxpayers effectively will be subsidising repayment of loans to China.”
Ms Fierravanti-Wells has previously accused China of funding “useless buildings” and “roads to nowhere” in the island nations.
China has indeed showered countries such as Vanuatu, Tonga and the Solomon Islands with loans in recent years. 

Between 2006 and 2016, it invested $2.3 billion in the region, according to analysis from The Lowy Institute.
But in a scathing response to Ms Fierravanti-Wells, China rejected any implication that its motives were not pure.

This isn’t the first time China and Australia have sparred over the Pacific Islands issue. 

Earlier this year, Beijing’s state-run media went so far as to label Australia an “arrogant overlord”.
The biggest fear among China’s Australian critics is that it will use its financial leverage for nefarious means.
“Such indebtedness gives China significant leverage over Pacific Island countries and may see China place pressure on Pacific nations to convert loans into equity in infrastructure,” The Lowy Institute warned.
“It’s not win-win for China and the recipient, but simply win for China, which not only gets access to local resources and new markets, and forward presence, but can coerce the recipient state to pay a ‘tribute’ to Beijing by ceding local assets when it can’t pay back its debts.”

Australia lashes out at China’s useless Pacific projects

Canberra accuses Beijing of building roads to nowhere in developing nations 
By Mark Wembridge

Chinese labourers work on a project in East Timor 

Australia has launched a scathing attack on China’s efforts to build influence in the Pacific, accusing Beijing of currying favour with the region’s smaller nations by funnelling cash into little-used infrastructure projects. 
 “You’ve got the Pacific full of these useless buildings which nobody maintains, which are basically white elephants,” Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, Australia’s minister for international development and the Pacific, said on Wednesday.
 “We just don’t want to build a road that doesn’t go anywhere,” she told reporters.
“We want to ensure that the infrastructure that you do build is actually productive and is actually going to give some economic benefit or some sort of health benefit.”
 The comments threaten further strains in relations between the two countries, which deteriorated last month after Canberra proposed new laws designed to tackle growing espionage threats and Chinese interference in domestic politics.
 The laws — prompted by allegations of Chinese influence over MPs and fears of spying — would ban foreign political donations and force lobbyists to reveal when they are working for overseas entities.

 Ms Fierravanti-Wells, a Liberal party senator, on Wednesday also accused Beijing of providing loans to smaller Pacific countries on unfavourable terms. 
 “We encourage China to utilise its development assistance in a productive and effective manner. In other words, we just don’t want to build something for the heck of building it,” she said.
 China transferred $1.8bn in aid and loans to South Pacific nations between 2006 and 2016, according to research by the Lowy Institute, a think-tank.
Papua New Guinea, which has seen its relations with Australia strained over the problem of asylum seeker camps on Manus Island, is one of the region’s countries that has been drawn into the Chinese sphere of influence.
 In November the Pacific nation signed a series of infrastructure deals with China as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, covering agriculture, transport and the delivery of utilities to the mountainous country’s remote areas.
 Fears of Chinese spying have also prompted Canberra to consider axing a deal under which China’s Huawei was to run a seabed cable 4,000km from Sydney to the Solomon Islands, instead proposing to bankroll the A$100m (US$78m) project itself.
 Concerns over Chinese political meddling have been raised by Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who noted “disturbing reports about Chinese influence” in domestic politics.
 Such fears prompted the resignation of Sam Dastyari, an opposition Labor senator who received Chinese cash and then called for Australia to respect Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea — a position contrary to that of his party.