China on Monday reaffirmed its strong ties with Bangladesh, especially after Bangladesh's Foreign Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal issued a rejoinder following a Finance Times (FT) interview recently.
In a press briefing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that the rejoinder "showed the mutual trust between China and Bangladesh," and that the truth would always prevail.
The rejoinder, issued by the Finance Ministry, said that the headline of an August 9 report titled "Bangladesh's finance minister warns on Belt and Road loans from China" did not reflect the minister's actual position.
The report mentioned Kamal warning that developing countries must think twice about taking more loans through China’s Belt and Road Initiative as global inflation and slowing growth add to the strains on indebted emerging markets.
Spokesperson Wenbin said that China always provided substantial sums of low-interest-rate and long-maturity concessional loans to support their efforts to improve infrastructure and people’s wellbeing.
These countries owe far less debt to China than to international capital markets and multilateral financial institutions dominated by Western countries, he also said during the briefing.
Facts have proven time and again that the so-called “China’s debt trap” is nothing but a narrative trap designed with ill intentions to disrupt and undermine China’s mutually beneficial cooperation with other developing countries, the Chinese ministry spokesperson said further.
"Facts are the most powerful rebuttal to any disinformation designed to tarnish the BRI and China’s cooperation with fellow developing countries," he also mentioned.
China is ready to continue to work with the developing world to implement the Global Development Initiative, pursue high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and deliver more benefits of common development to people in all countries more effectively and equitably, Wenbin said.
"We call on the relevant media to uphold the principle of impartiality, fairness, truthfulness and accuracy, fully respect facts, faithfully reflect the voice of developing countries and do more thing that are conducive to solidarity, cooperation and win-win results among all countries, rather than the opposite," he added.
In the August 9 FT report, Kamal claimed that Beijing needed to be more rigorous in evaluating its loans amid concern that poor lending decisions risked pushing countries into debt distress.
He pointed to Sri Lanka, where Chinese-backed infrastructure projects that failed to generate returns had exacerbated a severe economic crisis.
Kamal in the interview made clear that any project in any country could be financed if it is proven financially viable after rigorous studies.
However, in the rejoinder, it was said that he was in no way warning about Chinese loans.
"To be clear, Bangladesh owes approximately $4 billion to China - a trifling amount compared with Bangladesh's gross domestic product of $416 billion, and its external debt of $51billion (2021 figures)."