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Ed Webb

Is Abdulla Yameen Handing Over the Maldives to China? - Foreign Policy - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...ing-over-the-maldives-to-china

Maldives China India US Japan beltandroad marine trade investment infrastructure

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Apr 18 - No Cached
  • China has emerged in recent years, because of its economic ascent, as a neocolonial practitioner of predatory economics, which is sparking a new Great Game in the Indo-Pacific. In the words of former Maldivian Foreign Minister Ahmed Naseem, “What is happening in the Maldives is not just about democracy, it is about peace, security, and stability in the entire Indian Ocean neighborhood.”
  • India has played a major role in helping build the Maldivian economy, as well as in underwriting political stability in the country. India backed the authoritarian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom for several decades, even sending troops to preempt a 1988 military coup attempt
  • As has been the case in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere, an increasingly powerful and assertive China is melding its Belt and Road Initiative with its global maritime ambitions, throwing cash around to create dependent client states, and brazenly challenging India on New Delhi’s home turf, the Indian Ocean
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • before 2012, Beijing didn’t even have an embassy in the Maldivian capital of Malé, given the smidgeon of diplomatic importance it assigned to the small atoll. Yet today, the country is awash with Chinese tourists, as well as large streams of Chinese foreign investment
  • $830 million upgrade of the airport, including a 1.3-mile bridge to link the airport island with the capital, which is a $400 million project
  • geo-economic clout
  • China has signed a free trade agreement with the Maldives and has “leased the uninhabited island Feydhoo Finolhu for tourism use for 50 years,”
  • hard economic power
  • “debt-for-leverage model is based on providing Chinese financial support for infrastructure projects in exchange for access to the natural resources of the beneficiary nation,”
  • 70 percent of the total Maldivian debt, and $92 million a year in payments to China, roughly 10 percent of the entire budget
  • often Belt and Road projects do not always serve economic but rather geo-strategic, grand motives
  • In Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, the Chinese have been busy building ports, which they say are only for civilian use. While it is premature to see a conspiratorial chain of Chinese military facilities, it is also difficult to conclude that they are unrelated to Chinese maritime ambitions
  • a state of emergency and arrest Supreme Court judges last month after they ruled for the release of opposition politicians
  • Yameen’s actions have also drawn ire from India, the traditional peacekeeper in the region, though it has yet to take any direct action in the country, despite former President Mohamed Nasheed’s call for Indian troops to help stabilize the conflict-wracked island
  • Japanese charges — complete with a video — that Maldivian tankers have been secretly transferring goods to North Korean-flagged ships in grotesque violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions
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