This month’s presidential election, won by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, puts Beijing back in the driving seat in Sri Lanka
Amid the lush paddy fields of central Sri Lanka, a large, state-of-the-art hospital rises between the cranes and cement mixers.
Its perimeter walls are adorned with pictures of China’s president Xi Jinping and prime minister Li Keqiang, along with Sri Lankan leaders hailing the $67 million gift from Beijing. The hospital, specialising in kidney-related diseases, is helping China gain popular support in a country where its mega-projects have added to rising debt and raised concerns about excessive economic and political leverage.
Water plants and a Chinese radio station promoting its economic and social programmes are part of the campaign to win over doubters. China has invested an estimated $11 billion in Sri Lanka, around $8 billion in the form of loans related to Xi’s signature “Belt and Road Initiative” designed to boost trade and transport links across Asia.
Chinese firms, employing thousands of local workers, have built a giant port and plan to construct power stations and expressways as well. But the terms of some of those projects have drawn criticism from politicians in Sri Lanka and overseas and led to policy reversals that have stalled China’s ambitions on the Indian Ocean island.
“We … expect our companies to help the Sri Lankan people with donations and corporate social responsibility work,” China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, Cheng Xueyuan, said last month after inviting local journalists on a tour of the big Chinese investment projects on the island…
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