Chinese Highway Project In Georgia Brings Hope, Scandal, And Change, 12 June 2023

... [A]n ambitious 51.6-kilometer section of a Chinese-built highway cutting through Georgia’s rugged and mountainous countryside -- with 96 bridges, 53 tunnels, and a growing price tag approaching $1 billion -- could upend life for Giorgadze and others like her as it bypasses the small village and diverts the economically vital stream of traffic and tourists away from her shop.

"This new highway is overall a positive thing for the country," she told RFE/RL, "but little thought has been given to the impact on people like me who will be lost amid this giant project."...

Questions over how the winning contracts were awarded to a constellation of Chinese firms have followed the project since its inception in 2018, and the highway has faced a series of unexplained delays that has seen costs rise and construction deadlines extended first past the original 2020 completion date and now pushed beyond a revised 2023 opening date.

Floods and landslides in March that led to road closures and damage to the highway also raised concern from environmental groups and geologists that the disruptions were caused by poor-quality construction practices from crews blasting through the mountainside for tunnels and moving earth from the project near Rikoti Pass...