Samoa's First Female Prime Minister: "China's Belt and Road Initiative on Hold... Debt Unmanageable"

China's Port Project Costs Account for Half of Samoa's Debt
Adjacent to American Samoa...Concerns Over US-China Frontline

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Hyun-woo] The Republic of Samoa, an island nation in the South Pacific, has decided to put on hold the Belt and Road Initiative (land and maritime Silk Road) project that it had previously agreed to pursue with China. The Belt and Road project, which was a major controversy in Samoa during the general election last April, is believed to have raised concerns about falling into a debt trap as the burden grew to account for about half of Samoa's total external debt. Samoa faces the U.S. territory of American Samoa to the east, known as a key U.S. defense line in the Western Pacific, raising fears that the expanding Chinese sphere of influence could turn the area into a battleground between the two countries.

On the 19th (local time), according to Voice of America (VOA) and major foreign media, Fiame Naomi Mata'afa, Samoa's first female prime minister who recently took office, said in an interview with major foreign media, "Samoa is a small country, and currently our ports and airports meet our needs," adding, "The projects currently underway with China are unimaginably large in scale for Samoa to urgently implement."

Samoa, a small island nation with a population of 200,000 located in the middle of the South Pacific, began the development of the Asau port project worth approximately $160 million (about 181.1 billion KRW) in 2018 as part of the Belt and Road Initiative with China. However, as the project progressed, loans received from China surged to account for more than 40% of Samoa's total external debt, raising concerns about falling into a debt trap.

Along with concerns about the debt trap, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand have repeatedly raised worries about China's militarization of Samoa, leading to forecasts that the area could become a frontline battleground between the U.S. and China. This has further highlighted the negative aspects of the Belt and Road project. Currently, the western islands are the independent Republic of Samoa, while the eastern islands directly facing them are the U.S. territory of American Samoa, which, along with Hawaii, serves as a major U.S. military base in the Pacific.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.