Since 2013, a key part of Beijing’s foreign policy has been the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive network of ports, railways, and other infrastructure projects to connect China to Central Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and even parts of Africa. James Snell examines the ways in which it leaves countries indebted to China, paying particular attention to its impact on the Middle East:

The fuel for this project is Chinese cash, and more accurately Chinese-held debt. Between 2013 and 2018—and significantly increasing since—the South China Morning Post reported that around $300 billion of BRI cash was disbursed for work in over 50 countries, hundreds of billions of which was publicly and privately guaranteed debt to Chinese companies and state banks.

In September, it was reported that the “hidden debts” accumulated by BRI countries were over $385 billion. More than 40 poor countries were exposed to as much Chinese debt as 10 percent of their total GDP. . . . The conditions attached to Chinese loans have been variously described as “crippling” and “draconian.”

From Kashgar in Xinjiang province to the Balkans, the model is the same. Infrastructure projects are drawn up, sometimes necessary ones, sometimes projects designed for government prestige rather than local utility. Loans are made by state-backed Chinese banks, to pay part or the whole of the cost, which is often inflated. The firms tasked with the building are Chinese. They import Chinese managers and Chinese workers. Once the project is done, the local government is left with the bill—unless they default, in which case Beijing is able to take possession.

The Chinese control of vital infrastructure in countries like Britain and Greece, and even abandoned projects like in the United Arab Emirates, show that China can also easily buy and sell its way to the ownership of key industries.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.