Sri Lankan Ambassador to China Palitha Kohona dismissed suggestions that Sri Lanka was planning to extend the 99-year lease it granted Beijing to run the Hambantota Port.
He said in an interview that Sri Lanka would “never be an unsinkable aircraft carrier posing a threat to anyone else”, referring to China’s ongoing power struggle with the United States and India.
Hambantota’s location at the southern tip of Sri Lanka, overlooking South Asia’s vital sea lanes, makes it a potential key maritime hub in the Indian Ocean. Colombo agreed to hand over the running of the port in 2017 when it was unable to make the repayments on the Chinese loans used to develop it.
He was responding to a question about reports that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was revisiting the deal with China. Beijing also denied the deal was being reviewed, with Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Wang Wenbing saying the port’s operations were expanding. Ambassador Kohona also dismissed suggestions that Sri Lanka was falling into a debt trap.
“I’m saying responsibly and without any reservation that Sri Lanka’s debt to China is less than 10% of our entire debt, and that we can’t get into a trap. The rest of our debt is owed to multilateral institutions; to Wall Street and to others,” he said. (SCMP)