US woos Asia with plan to rival China’s ‘Belt and Road’
The US does not need to actively confront Belt & Road. The scheme looked like a big honeypot for a long time but now, many OBOR partners turn sour as they find out that the monies must be reimbursed and that the collateral given hurts. It won’t be long before the first OBOR partner will simply refuse to honor the terms of the deal. That will raise hackles and it’s doubly dangerous for China as they cannot permit that to happen. If they do nothing, they must correct the HAVE side of their balance sheet but what’s more important is that it will invite questions on how solid many of those receivables are. This means they must threaten their former partner and that’s the time when those parers will escape under US protection. A US base is quite a deterrent. And they will come, many of them just to escape the dragons wrath.
AP News 
