China’s Xi promotes building initiative amid debt worries
BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping promised Friday to set high standards for Beijing’s sweeping infrastructure-building initiative as fellow leaders praised the effort despite worries it leaves some developing countries with too much debt.
Xi avoided mentioning debt in a speech at a Belt and Road forum celebrating his signature foreign initiative. But he promised changes in response to complaints about costs and possible corruption and environmental damage.
Beijing wants “open, green and clean co-operation” with “zero tolerance for corruption,” Xi said.
Developing countries have welcomed the initiative, launched in 2013, to expand trade by building roads, ports and other facilities from Asia through Africa and the Middle East to Europe. But some governments are struggling to repay Chinese loans, fueling complaints poor countries are being pushed into a “debt trap.”