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Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister announced on Wednesday that after a meeting and bilateral talks with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang, he has agreed to develop the Colombo airport and the Hambantota port.
This promise of the Sri Lankan Prime Minister is being considered a big setback for India, because building a strategic deep-sea port in Hambantota means giving China another base in the Indian Ocean, which is obviously not a good thing for India.
Meaning of Sri Lankan PM’s promise
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena has said after a meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang that China, Sri Lanka’s biggest bilateral lender, will “assist” in restructuring Sri Lanka’s external debt, a key condition for continuing the $2.9 billion IMF bailout package two.
Questions are therefore being raised whether China has tried to secure the airport and port deal by pressuring Sri Lanka to “assist” in debt restructuring.
Beijing’s position on debt restructuring has not been made public yet, but Sri Lankan officials have said that China is not willing to cut its debts but may extend the loan repayment time and adjust interest rates.
Let us tell you that in the year 2022, Sri Lanka ran out of foreign exchange reserves, after which it declared itself in default, expressing its inability to repay its $ 46 billion debt. After which there were violent protests in Sri Lanka, and the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the then Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa had to flee the country.
It is believed that the reason behind Sri Lanka’s default is the Chinese debt trap.
But now, Prime Minister Gunawardena’s office has said that Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang has promised that China will “continue to support Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring process and help Sri Lanka develop its economy.”
Without giving further details, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Gunawardena said that Beijing has offered “assistance to develop” the Colombo International Airport and the Hambantota Port.
Since Sri Lanka’s sovereign debt default, the Japanese-financed Colombo airport is currently on hold.
While Sri Lanka handed over the southern port of Hambantota to a Chinese government-owned company in 2017 on a 99-year lease for $1.12 billion, raising security concerns in India.
Both India and the United States are concerned that a Chinese foothold in Hambantota on the island’s southern coast could significantly increase China’s naval edge in the Indian Ocean. Although Sri Lanka has insisted that its ports will not be used for any military purpose, New Delhi has strongly objected to the Chinese spy ships calling at Hambantota.
The most surprising thing is that Sri Lanka is working against India even at a time when India had given $4 billion aid to its neighboring country when China had abandoned Sri Lanka during the economic crisis.
