One of the undercovered stories in the US MSM is how China uses loans (and possibly bribes to politicians) to screw poor countries.

A lot of folks noticed how Sri Lanka has imploded, partly because of corruption, poor economic decisions to take on debt while lowering taxes, 

and it's decision to become a green economy didn't help: From Bloomburg:

Last April, Sri Lanka suffered another shock: the government abruptly banned chemical fertilizer imports. In public, officials framed the move as delivering on a campaign promise to embrace organic farming and fight the “fertilizer mafia.” ...    The ban backfired. Sri Lanka’s entire agricultural chain — around a third of the labor force and 8% of gross domestic product — faced disruptions. The paddy harvest failed, forcing the government to import rice and start an expensive food aid program to support devastated farmers. Export earnings from tea, a key revenue source, also dried up. In November, as protests flared, the government partially reversed the ban.

That is how China got a port in that country. Here is the story from the Asahi Shunbun,  a Japanese newspaper:

Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million, sits off the southern coast of India on the Indian Ocean shipping lanes through which China receives the vast majority of its imported oil from the Middle East.

not just China, of course, but also Korea, Japan, SEAsia and of course nearby India. Sort of how the Chinese grab of shoals in the west Philippine sea would allow them to block oil to Korea and Japan too. Think "the game of go" and you can see what the ultimate plan is. 

As part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative to pump money into infrastructure projects across Asia and Africa, former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa took on many loans, including $1.1 billion to build a port in his home region of Hambantota despite the plan having been rejected by an expert panel.

Corruption of course. 

When the deep-water port failed to generate the foreign revenue needed to pay China back, Sri Lanka in 2017 was forced to hand the facility and thousands of acres of land around it to Beijing for 99 years--giving China a key foothold directly opposite regional rival India’s coastline

And no one saw it coming. (/s).

Actually India did, and the Asahi artucke notes that India might step into the breech and rescue Sri Lanka.

SP article on the geopolitics of China's influence in countries near India for deep background

So what has this to do with a little old lady retired in the rural Philippines?

Well, we just got a new president who is hated by the US, and he knows it. So this could be a way for China to offer help to the Philippines, where the economy is  reeling from the covid epidemic (not just shutdown but loss of jobs for OFW and maritime workers). 

So what does China do instead? They are busy bullying the Philippines in the West Phlippine sea, blocking fishermen and continuing to explore for natural gas deposits that belong to the Philippine,  as a test to see what BMM will do.

Yes, Marcos family is notorious for their corruption, but they are also patriots and most Filipinos, and the government is elected and has to answer to the locals. Even those who object to the US pushing the country around tend to like America and hate China, who lies and cheats and sells shoddy goods that are cheap so end up undermining local industries.

my advice to the US? instead of forcing folks in the military to attend classes on using the correct pronoun, maybe encourage them to learn the game of Go. As this article points out, the US sees war as a game of chess, but China uses the ideas of Go in their war strategy.

here is a video on the game: