This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor.

This is CBS I on the world. I'm John Batchelor. I welcome my good colleague, Joseph Sternberg,

a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.

He's in London, where he writes political economics, and most recently observing the troubled Chinese economy.

Joe was many years in Hong Kong and Asia for the Wall Street Journal editorial page,

and his observations are most helpful for me to understand a mystery these last years of

Xi Jinping, Belt and Road, especially because now and again I would run up into a project

that the Chinese had financed with Belt and Road money, such as the cracking dam in Ecuador

or the airport and port facility in Sri Lanka that nobody uses,

thinking to myself, okay. This is China being aggressive and buying friends, and if it didn't come

to anything, they have debtors, and that'll give them power. I was wrong. Joe, a very good

evening to you. Belt and Road, as you explicate in your most recent column, is something that the

Chinese hadn't counted on, it's going badly on them, and they want their money back. But before that,

we have to get to why they created Belt and Road.

They have surplus cash.

Generally, that sounds like a good thing, but it's not.

Why not, Joe?

Good evening to you.

Hey, John.

Well, I mean, what we're talking about this evening is sort of the China half of a phenomenon

that you and I have discussed in various

forums for much of the past year, which is sort of, you know, we have a lot of controversies

...