Can the Belt and Road become a trap for China?

Program risks leaving Beijing vulnerable to the growing bargaining power of recipient states

20190523 Colombo Port City Project.jpg

China-funded Colombo Port City Project, pictured during construction in Oct. 2015: some BRI partner countries are now demanding to renegotiate terms. © Getty Images

Critics often claim that China is using its massive Belt and Road Initiative as a form of coercive "debt-trap diplomacy" to exert control over the countries that join the transnational infrastructure investment scheme.

This risk, as Deborah Brautigam of Johns Hopkins University recently noted, is often exaggerated by the media. But, in fact, BRI may hold a different kind of risk -- for China itself.

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