World Bank President David Malpass on April 20 said the Bank would find a new means for restructuring developing nation debt in order to “avoid” any money going to repay debt to China, claiming a “lack of transparency relating to the amounts they owe to China,” according to Bloomberg. He also said it would be “probably good for everyone.”
Global Times responded today that the World Bank’s “dancing to Washington’s tune and parroting groundless accusations targeting China’s loan agreements with other countries does not help any country in any way. Providing financial support to help developing countries through multilateral mechanisms is why the World Bank was established. Therefore, the multilateral lender should not be a place for geopolitical calculations of certain members.”
The former World Bank Chief Economist Justin Yifu Lin told the April 9 Schiller Institute Conference, and in an interview with EIR to be published this week, that he had concluded that the World Bank and the IMF methods had failed to lift developing countries out of poverty since they refused to build basic infrastructure, but only gave aid, leaving the countries undeveloped and poor. That is why China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Lin said, emphasizes infrastructure, and is also why so many countries support China’s approach.
