The Maldives’ new government is going to pull out of a free-trade agreement (FTA) with China because it was a mistake for the tiny nation to strike such a pact with the world’s second-biggest economy, the head of the largest party in the ruling alliance said.
It is the latest sign of a backlash against China in the Maldives, best-known for its luxury resorts on palm-fringed coral islands.
“The trade imbalance between China and the Maldives is so huge that nobody would think of an FTA between such parties,” said Mohamed Nasheed, head of the Maldivian Democratic Party, which leads the ruling alliance. “China is not buying anything from us. It is a one-way treaty.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
As he took office on Saturday, Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih declared that the state coffers had been “looted” and warned that the country was in financial difficulty after racking up debt with Chinese lenders.
Former Maldivian president Abdullah Yameen, who lost the September election, signed the FTA during a visit to Beijing in December last year, and the same month his parliament ratified the treaty despite opposition protests that he had rushed through the 1,000-page document in less than an hour without any debate.
Nasheed, a former president and now an advisor to Solih, said parliament would not pass the law changes required for the zero tariffs agreement to come into force.
“It was ratified by parliament, but fortunately it calls for different sets of legislation. We are not going to have this further legislation. We can’t go with that,” Nasheed said in an interview in the capital, Male.
China’s embassy in Male did not respond to a request for a comment on the pact.
However, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Chinese Culture and Tourism Minister Luo Shugang (雒樹剛), President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) special envoy to the inauguration, told Solih that Beijing paid great attention to developing relations with the Maldives.
China was willing to work with the Maldives to consolidate their traditional friendship, plan their practical cooperation and promote Belt and Road to inject “new impetus” into their future relationship, the ministry cited Luo as saying during a meeting on Sunday with Solih.
The statement cited Solih as expressing appreciation for China’s long-term support of the Maldives and that he was willing to further deepen cooperation under the Belt and Road framework.
Critics in the Maldives say a China-led infrastructure boom has left the tiny country of a little more than 400,000 people debt-ridden, and a free-trade pact would only make the situation worse given the lopsided nature of the relationship.
Between January to August this year, the Maldives’ imports from China were US$342 million, while its exports to China were US$265,270, according to Maldivian customs data.
It bought meat, agricultural produce, flowers, plants, electronics and toys from China among many other items.
It imported US$194 million worth of goods from India, its traditional partner, during the same period, while exporting US$1.8 million of products including scrap metal such as copper, aluminium and steel.
The Yameen administration said at the time that the FTA with China would help diversify the US$3.9 billion economy and boost fisheries exports from the Maldives, crucial since the EU declined in 2014 to renew a tax concession on them.
A member of Solih’s transition team also said the administration was thinking of canceling the pact.
“It makes no business sense,” the official said, requesting anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. “This is not something we are going to pursue, we expect the cabinet to meet and take a formal decision on this.”
The new administration plans an audit of the deals signed by the Yameen administration, but it said it had no plans to suspend or cancel any of the projects, such as airport expansion and housing contracts, given to Chinese firms.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was