China regretted Friday the decision of Panama to cancel his participation in the Silk Route, and charged against the “Cold War Mentality”From the United States in Latin America.
After the pressures exercised by President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Frame China throughout the last decade.
“Beijing laments Panama’s decision“, said Lin Jianspokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
The spokesman urged the Central American country to “resist external interference“, already “Take into account the bilateral relationship at a broader level, and the long -term interests of both nations”
From his return to the White House on January 20, Trump exerted enormous pressure on Panama to reduce Chinese economic influence on the interoceanic channel, built by the United States and then delivered to the Central American country in 1999, under bilateral treaties signed two decades before with the administration of Jimmy Carter.
The Republican president also complained about the rates paid by US ships, and said he did not rule out the use of force to recover the interoceanic pathway.
And although this is administered by the Panama Canal Authority, Washington insists that China has an important influence through a Hongkonese company that operates ports in the two tickets of the road, where 5% of the world maritime trade and 40% of the United States container traffic.
Formal protest
After Marco Rubio to Panama in the framework of a tour of Central America and the Caribbean, the first of his term, Mulino announced on Thursday the cancellation of the economic agreement of the Silk route with China within 90 days.
“I don’t know what encouraged who signed that with China at the time”Mulino said.
“What has brought for Panama in all these years? What are the big things? What ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ has brought the country?”The president asked.
Mulino already advanced last week, after meeting with Rubio, who would expire the agreement with China signed in 2017, a first step-before the cancellation announcement of the same-that the US diplomat quickly praised quickly.
“It is a big step forward for relations between the United States and Panama”Said the Secretary of State, of Cuban origin and first Hispanic to occupy this position.
The same day, from El Salvador, Rubio said he hopes that the Panamanian government relieves them “concerns“On a supposed Chinese influence on the channel.
And on Tuesday, in Costa Rica, the official offered his support to the Central American Nation Front “to companies that are not safe, [que] They are backed by governments such as China who likes to threaten, sabotage, use the economic coercion to punish you”
Comments that Beijing censored vigorously this Friday, and for which he said he had presented a formal protest.
Rubio’s statements “They unfairly accuse China, sow Zizaña deliberate between China and important countries in Latin America, interfere with Chinese internal affairs, and undermine legitimate interests and rights“Of the Asian giant, said a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, which she folvated”The Cold War Mentality”From Washington in Latin America.
An intercontinental project
The agreement of the Strip and the Silk route consists in the financing of infrastructure projects with Chinese funds to boost trade and connectivity in Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America.
More than a hundred countries have signed the agreement, emblematic project of the Xi Jinping government launched in 2013, and considered one of the main ram of China’s overall influence.
His detractors accuse Beijing of serving from this great commercial and diplomatic project to pass with Chinese credits an unsustainable debt between developing countries, which then serves the Asian giant of pressure tool.
Beijing informed in this case that “It firmly opposes that the United States use pressure and coercion to denigrate and undermine cooperation within the framework of the Silk Route”
“His achievements have benefited people from countries like Panama”Said spokesman Lin.
Source: Gestion
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