House Democrats backing Trump in dispute with China

Washington Examiner:

Chinese President Xi Jinping shouldn’t dream of driving the United States from Asia and the Pacific, according a senior House Democrat.

“It's a matter of peaceful coexistence and competition or endless conflict that could get out of hand,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., told the Washington Examiner.

Connolly, who sits on the Foreign Affairs subcommittee for the region, issued that warning during an interview that took place as Vice President Mike Pence attended a pair of major summits hosted by Singapore and Papua New Guinea. Pence’s message through the events was a consistent warning about China’s economic aggression, which could develop into a rare point of foreign policy unity between the Trump administration and the Democrats who will control the House next year.

“We seek an Indo-Pacific in which all nations, large and small, can prosper and thrive — secure in sovereignty, confident in our values, and growing stronger together,” Pence said at the ASEAN summit in Singapore. “We all agree that empire and aggression have no place in the Indo-Pacific.”

That was an apparent reference to China’s vaunted “Belt and Road” initiative, a campaign for international investment in strategically significant infrastructure. The United States has branded it an exercise in “predatory economic behavior” to colonize impoverished countries.

China has gained sovereignty over one valuable port already, by financing a project in Sri Lanka and then taking control of the facility when the island nation — just south of rival India — defaulted on the debt payments.
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This is a pretty clever scam China is running.  They are using real estate liens to secure loans to borrower nations with dubious credit as a means of acquiring territory in those countries.  Call it real estate lien colonialism.   This is the best explanation for why China is making these loans to countries with poor credit.