Fake news by Daily Mail

SCMP Alex Lo: The Daily Mail only repeated the MI6 chief’s dubious claims about China’s “debt trap” diplomacy, many points of which have proved to be factually false over time. 南華早報《每日郵報》只是重複了軍情六處負責人關於中國“債務陷阱”外交的可疑說法，隨著時間的推移，其中許多觀點都被證明是錯誤的假新聞.

Spymasters the world over are in the business of dissimulation. But if you are the new head of British intelligence, Richard Moore, mainstream media in Britain from the BBC to the Daily Mail will take your words as gospel.

The BBC went out of its way to twist the words of an American academic authority on the subject to make her appear to say the opposite of her actual position.

In his interview, Moore claimed that the debt trap had allowed China to be given the use of ports – which could be used as naval bases – in countries which are unable to repay loans.

He was, no doubt, thinking of the saga of the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota.

This claim, which is now known to be false, has been made by many people, including former US vice-president Mike Pence and former US national security adviser H.R. McMaster.

Deborah Brautigam, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and Meg Rithmire, of the Harvard Business School, have investigated and found there was never a debt swap for assets.

The BBC asked Brautigam for comments. The result so infuriated her she posted online a rebuttal, titled “BBC Misrepresents my Views on ‘Debt Trap Diplomacy’”.

“[Moore] said that the Chinese have deliberately used debt as leverage to acquire strategic assets,” she wrote.

“I outlined why this idea had little basis in fact, drawing on my extensive research with Meg Rithmire about the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka and other cases, and that of other researchers. I gave examples from Montenegro, Kenya, Zambia, and other places where these fears have been trumpeted in the media, but without evidence to support them.”

It’s not for nothing that we in this business are called hacks.

She continued: “I listened to the BBC and was horrified to find that … they completely discarded all the evidence I presented … about why that conventional wisdom was not correct.”

Of course, the idea never makes sense. In the jungle of international politics, a lender like China could end up with nothing, rather than the assets desired. A new government or a leadership change in the borrowing country can renege on a deal and there is not much Beijing can do.