{"id":45852,"date":"2022-06-29T11:16:06","date_gmt":"2022-06-29T02:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jun\/29\/china-tonga-loans-no-political-strings-attached-pacific"},"modified":"2022-06-29T11:16:06","modified_gmt":"2022-06-29T02:16:06","slug":"china-insists-tonga-loans-come-with-no-political-strings-attached","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=45852","title":{"rendered":"China insists Tonga loans come with \u2018no political strings attached\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ambassador rejects \u2018debt trap\u2019 concerns, saying heavily indebted Pacific nation will not be forced to pay back loans<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s ambassador to Tonga has denied engaging in \u201cdebt trap\u201d diplomacy in the Pacific, saying in his first press conference in two years that if the heavily indebted country cannot repay its loans, \u201cwe can talk and negotiate in a friendly, diplomatic manner\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Cao Xiaolin told Tuesday\u2019s gathering in Nuku\u2019alofa \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/may\/31\/outcry-as-china-stops-pacific-journalists-questioning-wang-yi\">a rare opportunity for journalists to question Chinese officials<\/a> \u2013 that preferential loans from China came with \u201cno political strings attached\u201d and that Beijing would never force countries to repay the loans.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jun\/29\/china-tonga-loans-no-political-strings-attached-pacific\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ambassador rejects \u2018debt trap\u2019 concerns, saying heavily indebted Pacific nation will not be forced to pay back loansChina\u2019s ambassador to Tonga has denied engaging in \u201cdebt trap\u201d diplomacy in the Pacific, saying in his first press conference in two yea&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2932,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,874,280],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-pacific-islands","category-tonga"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2932"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45853,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45852\/revisions\/45853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}