Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, 3rd Edition, 3rd Edition

2A Savior’s Nightmare

On the day before Christmas 2018, the New York Times wrote about the Sinohydro project:

This giant dam in the jungle, financed and built by China, was supposed to christen Ecuador’s vast ambitions, solve its energy needs and help lift the small South American country out of poverty. Instead, it has become part of a national scandal engulfing the country in corruption, perilous amounts of debt—and a future tethered to China.¹

Reading that article, I could only begin to imagine the turmoil that Correa was experiencing, emotionally and politically. He had fallen from a very high mountain into a deep crevasse.

President Xi’s visit to Ecuador just two years earlier must have seemed like the moment when Correa would get even ...