Southeast Asian countries should be cautious in negotiating with China on its flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to avoid being trapped in unsustainable debt, 70 percent of respondents said in a policy survey released on Monday. The survey by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, affiliated with the Singapore government, polled 1,008 respondents from all ten nations of the ASEAN grouping, drawn from government, academic and business communities, civil society and the media.
Nearly half of the respondents said President Xi Jinping's hallmark Belt and Road initiative would bring ASEAN "closer into China's orbit," while a third said the project lacked transparency and 16 percent predicted it would fail. A large majority, or 70 percent, said their governments "should be cautious in negotiating BRI projects, to avoid getting into unsustainable financial debts with China," a view strongest in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
