The government of Sierra Leone has signed a controversial $55 million deal with the Chinese communist regime to allow it to build an industrial fishing harbor on 250 acres of its beach and protected rainforest. The West African country had previously signed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with China, which has been criticized by the international community as a “debt trap” set up by the regime.
China’s BRI (also known as “One Belt, One Road”) is Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s grand foreign policy project launched in 2013. It aims to extend the regime’s economic and political influence to countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa by recreating ancient China’s silk road and maritime silk road for trading in the 21st century. The BRI invests Chinese capital in the construction of various high-cost infrastructure projects in more than 60 participating countries.
