In an item about Chinese ‘debt trap’ diplomacy we interviewed Professor Deborah Brautigan, who explained that this ‘is the idea that China is deliberately luring countries into borrowing more money than they can afford with the goal of using that debt for strategic leverage, to seize assets of some kind or otherwise push the country to do China’s bidding.’ She went on to give an example of the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, saying it was used by the Trump administration to promote this theory.
However Professor Brautigan’s further point, that these ideas have little basis in fact, was edited out of the broadcast interview. In fact Professor Brautigan’s research shows that Chinese banks are willing to restructure the terms of existing loans and have never actually seized an asset from any country, much less the port of Hambantota.
We apologise for the error.
source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarifications/
This always happens. It’s a classic propaganda tactic. Tell blatant lies, allow them to circulate and spread and penetrate into the social consciousness, then in response to irrefutable evidence that you are wrong issue a retraction, but as hidden from public view as possible and giving it little if any circulation. Now you can point to this in response to your critics and state factually that you have corrected the record, but in reality the general public will still overwhelmingly believe the original lie that is now internalized.