{"id":66105,"date":"2024-08-08T09:34:17","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T00:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/aug\/08\/vanuatu-presidential-palace-funded-by-china-debt-fears"},"modified":"2024-08-08T09:34:17","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T00:34:17","slug":"vanuatu-presidential-palace-funded-by-china-stirs-debt-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=66105","title":{"rendered":"Vanuatu presidential palace funded by China stirs debt fears"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Beijing says \u2018no strings attached\u2019 to the complex unveiled last month amid wider concerns over loans the Pacific country owes to China<\/p>\n<p>Perched atop Port Vila, Vanuatu\u2019s seaside capital, sits a gleaming red and white building, gifted to the Pacific country by China last month. The new presidential palace has a coveted position in town, high on a hill and overlooking the prime minister\u2019s office, a building which was similarly renovated thanks to a hefty Chinese donation almost a decade ago.<\/p>\n<p>The multimillion dollar<strong> <\/strong>complex is the latest in a long line of gifts and infrastructure projects offered to Vanuatu by Beijing, transforming several towns and villages in the small island nation of just over 300,000 people. They include a suite of new government ministry buildings, the country\u2019s parliament house, road construction projects on several islands, the rebuilding of a sports stadium, a new wharf, and the donation of a massive convention centre that often sits empty in the middle of town.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/article\/2024\/aug\/08\/vanuatu-presidential-palace-funded-by-china-debt-fears\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beijing says \u2018no strings attached\u2019 to the complex unveiled last month amid wider concerns over loans the Pacific country owes to ChinaPerched atop Port Vila, Vanuatu\u2019s seaside capital, sits a gleaming red and white building, gifted to the Pacific count&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4040,"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":[41,43,50,874,323,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-australia-news","category-china","category-pacific-islands","category-vanuatu","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66105","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\/4040"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66106,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66105\/revisions\/66106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}