Hua made the remarks in response to the allegations in a commentary published by the Financial Times saying that “China’s Belt and Road difficulties are proliferating across the world” due to “Beijing’s opaque approach to development finance”, China Central Television (CCTV) reported.

The opinions of the Financial Times article are apparently groundless and China absolutely disagrees with it, said Hua at a routine press briefing in Beijing.

“Instead, China has always upheld equity, openness and transparency, as well as a market-oriented operation with enterprises as its core, while acting in line with market rules and international practices in advancing the Belt and Road Initiative with the relevant countries. Every single project is the result of negotiations and joint efforts between the relevant parties. For example, 27 countries, including China, jointly approved the finance guidelines for the Belt and Road Initiative, which specifies that a financial environment that features transparency, friendship, equal treatment and predictability should be created, while stressing the progress of a sustainable development of society and economy, and a fund raising approach that takes into consideration the sustainability of debts,” she added.

Certain Belt and Road projects indeed met with some difficulties due to both external and internal factors. However, these obstacles are nothing but “growing pains”, according to Hua.

“Of course, with the recent escalation of trade protectionism around the world, the spillover effect of the monetary policies of major economies began to become visible. Uncertainties have increased in the world economy. Some developing countries are enduring pressures in maintaining a stable economy. As some countries encountered political turmoils and frequent natural disasters, a few Belt and Road projects faced some difficulties. However, those are the growing pains, which can only and must be addressed by the parties involved through consultation and cooperation,” the spokeswoman said.

Hua urged the relevant media to shift their focus to reporting more truth about the Belt and Road Initiative, rather than eying on biased allegations.

“If one arbitrarily claims that there is a proliferation of difficulties for the Belt and Road projects across the world, and blames it on the financial cooperation with China, then it is a typical fallacy of hasty generalization that is groundless, non-mainstream and irresponsible. Among China’s partners, no one was in a debt crisis because of its cooperation with China, and among the so-called debt crises that occurred so far, none was triggered because of China,” Hua said.

“We hope the related reports could adopt a realistic attitude, abandon their biased perspectives and focus on more objective, fair, and full-fledged reports, so as to help the readers of the related media to know about the truth,” she added.