The following is from the 4th page of the Sankei Shimbun this morning.
I am emphasizing the sentence except the headline.
Indo-Pacific Economic Area Conception
US has a showdown with 'The Belt and Road Initiative' of China.
To prevent excessive loans from China
【Washington = Kurose Etsunari】
In the ASEAN-related meeting this time, the US administration is trying to establish a US-led ‘free and open’ economic zone in the Indo-Pacific region with a view to intensifying US and Chinese ‘trade wars’, USA is striving to confront with the concept of the regional economic zone promoted by China 'The Belt and Road Initiative'.
Secretary of State Pompeo emphasized on the 3rd, at a foreign ministerial meeting with ASEAN countries, ‘The US is a Pacific nation.’
President Trump announced that the ‘India-Pacific Strategy’, which was first proposed in November last year, is to be developed mainly in the region's largest multilateral framework, ASEAN.
Mr. Pompeo announced its establishment on the 30th last month, the regional fund for the Indian Pacific's growth support is about 113.5 million dollars (about 12.7 billion yen).
Compared to the fact that the capital of China-led ‘Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank’ (AIIB), which is responsible for infrastructure development for the promotion of 'The Belt and Road Initiative', is about 100 billion US dollars, it cannot be said that it is a large amount.
Meanwhile, the US Congress is currently deliberating a bipartisan bill to expand the size of the US government's development financing to over twice the previous $ 60 billion scale.
As a Trump regime, it hopes to promote US-led investment in regional growth fields such as ‘digital economy and infrastructure development, energy’ by the establishment of the bill.
The US administration's strategy to settle ‘open and transparent’ business practices through the entry of US companies and aim to expand the influence of the United States,
It is also an antithesis to Chinese methods trying to trap debts to the partner country's government under the name of development assistance and to fall into a de facto ‘economic slavery relationship’.
The creditor countries such as the US and Europe have been urging China to formally participate in the ‘Paris Club’ (main creditor country meeting) in recent years,
Closing the ‘transparency of loans’ to China,
It is aimed at keeping back unlawful loans to middle and low-income countries.
It is obvious that it is simply a country that receives loans from China and the corrupted authoritarian regime does not welcome the ‘transparency’ of the transactions the US wants to push forward, and optimism cannot be anticipated.
At the same time, how to deal with the problem of Pakistan, which is a typical example of China's ‘debt trap’, is becoming a pending issue for the future of the US strategy.
Because Pakistan is escaping from the pressure of debt from China, there is a growing possibility to request assistance from the US-led international monetary fund (IMF).
The total amount of China's Pakistan loan plan is 62 billion dollars.
Mr. Pompeo thrusts, ‘There is no reason to use the fund of the IMF which included the US taxation for repayment to China,’ Pakistan of allies collaborating in the ‘war on terror’ etc. is in debt crisis It could lead to destabilization of the situation in South Asia and the US administration will be forced to make a difficult choice.
