Thousands of Chinese citizens are illicitly entering the United States through the San Diego-Mexico border, seeking asylum akin to the citizens of impoverished Central African and war-torn West Asian nations, revealing a different facet of Chinese society beyond its glittering coastal cities.
According to data from the US Customs and Border Protection, in the year until August 2023, there were a total of 20,273 encounters with Chinese migrants at the US-Mexico border, a staggering 831% increase from the previous year’s 2,176 encounters.
An examination of a dozen countries with the highest debt owed to China, including Pakistan, Kenya, Zambia, Laos, and Mongolia, indicates that repaying this debt “is increasingly consuming a larger portion of tax revenue… and depleting foreign currency reserves,” as reported by the Associated Press.
The AP attributes this situation to “China’s reluctance to forgive debt and its extreme secrecy surrounding the amount of money it has loaned and the terms, which has deterred other major lenders from stepping in to assist.”
“China has not only struggled to generate significant returns on its (Belt and Road Initiative) investments, but it is also at risk of losing capital in several countries over the last three years,” the report noted.
Meanwhile, the gradual yet unrelenting process of derisking and the relocation of industries from China to other countries continues to exacerbate economic distress in the world’s second-largest economy. This is prompting thousands of blue-collar workers to seek better opportunities elsewhere in the world.
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