BRI links nations, does not lay 'debt traps'

Despite being widely acknowledged as a connectivity and infrastructure development project for the past five years, the Belt and Road Initiative has come in for criticism by some, with a few even calling it a "debt trap" that China is laying by offering huge loans to countries already under a debt burden.

Some Western think tanks and media outlets with anti-China bias tend to view the BRI as China's strategy to challenge the existing world order and build a new one led by China. By so doing, they reveal their Cold War mentality. And the zero-sum game they are indulging is aimed at disrupting China's peaceful development.

The so-called experts who label the Belt and Road Initiative a debt trap should know that countries involved in the Initiative carefully check the feasibility of a Belt and Road project, and evaluate its costs and profits, and asset-liability ratio before finalizing it. They should also know that China helps countries in need of infrastructure funds which some developed countries and international financial organizations refuse to provide due to the slow return on infrastructure projects.