There are a great many questions to be asked about the great Gozo bridge project, some of the details of which were published by this and another Sunday newspaper last week.

Such questions centre on whether such a link is really needed; whether a sort of referendum should be held on the prospective project and whether that poll should be solely for Gozitans or the whole of the population; and whether the country can afford such a project in the first place and if that money would be better spent elsewhere.

These will undoubtedly be some of the questions for future debate but at the moment the main question is not about any of that. The real story here is not about the merits of the bridge itself, or that it is being considered at all.

The real story is that Malta stands to be sold out, once again, to a communist dictatorship. For despite all the niceties and platitudes applied by politicians when addressing rankling issues related to the economic superpower that is China, the country remains, plain and simple, a dictatorship.

But that is not by any means the only outstanding problem with the bridge proposals. While it is understood that, even though the Chinese government-owned China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) had offered to carry out the €4 million feasibility Gozo bridge study free of charge, it is not obliged to choose CCCC to actually build the bridge. This, however, defies reason to a certain extent since no one in business, or a government for that matter, does anything for free.

A number of financing options have been suggested in the Chinese report to pay for the bridge's construction, the most contentious of which is the trade-off of public land to meet the €750 million to €1 billion price tag, minus any European Union funding that Malta could apply for.

But as far as EU funding is concerned, although government-to-government deals are not subject to EU rules on public procurement, it is highly doubtful that the EU would provide funding on such a level, or on any level for that matter, when the construction company involved has been blacklisted by the World Bank and its partner organisations.

The Chinese state-owned company was blacklisted by the World Bank in 2009 for fraudulent practices in the Philippines and the company is set to remain on the World Bank's blacklist until 12 January, 2017. In the meantime, it is ineligible to engage in any road or bridge projects financed by the World Bank Group.

In addition to the World Bank, CCCC is also blacklisted by the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and it is on at least two blacklists in the United States because of its Iran-Armenia railway project.

Tanzanian officials were recently charged with fraudulently awarding a bloated contract worth more than US$523 million to CCCC to expand Dar es Salaam's main port. Earlier this year, a Kenyan MP said "shadowy forces" were behind the awarding of a contract to CCCC for the building of a railroad. CCCC had, incidentally, carried out a 'free' feasibility study on that latter project.

Now on to the financing options proposed by CCCC for the still hypothetical construction of the Gozo bridge. Here, the land exchange proposal is particularly contentious.

Aside from the obvious concern that land is in desperately short supply in Malta - and even land reclamation projects will not be able to increase supply by much - it means literally giving away precious sovereign territory to the Chinese government. The sale of land in Pembroke to the Chinese government for its new embassy for less than its market value is bad enough, but are we to now see that land being handed over in return for a bridge, with another vast amount of more land also being surrendered? If one does the Maths, we are talking about an awful lot of land in exchange for the bridge.

As for the other financing options suggested by CCCC, they should all be complete non-starters considering its blacklisting practically across the globe.  Those three other financing options, as reported, are in short: the government paying the full cost with CCCC carrying out the project's design and construction; CCCC providing the financing for a 'reasonable return' in the form of a loan of sorts; and thirdly for CCCC to finance the whole project and to then collect tolls from bridge users.

It also seems that when it comes to China, the government is suffering from an extreme bout of two weights and two measures, or amnesia. When the blacklisting of a government consultant was exposed after he was appointed as a consultant to Malta Enterprise, the Prime Minister first tried to wriggle out of the problem by saying the "claims" were being "investigated", and then he made a show of withdrawing that consultant's appointment letter. But lo and behold, the government is now openly courting a Chinese government-owned blacklisted company that has recommended the handing over of a large amount of territory effectively to the Chinese government.

Even more to the point, once upon a time the Labour Party in opposition had shouted until it was blue in the face about the World Bank's sanctioning of another company involved in a controversial contract: that of the then new Delimara power station. It had criticised the decision of the government of the day to commission the blacklisted Lahmeyer International as its independent consultant tasked with assessing the bids for that contract.

It is said that one should not look a gift horse in the mouth but what if that gift horse is a Trojan horse in the making? Malta would do well not to be overly tempted by Greeks, or in this case Chinese, bearing gifts.