CIA chief Bill Burns
Photo : AP
But nations should look at “a place like Sri Lanka today — heavily indebted to China — which has made some really dumb bets about their economic future and are suffering pretty catastrophic, both economic and political, consequences as a result.
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“That, I think, ought to be an object lesson to a lot of other players — not just in the Middle East or South Asia, but around the world — about having your eyes wide open about those kinds of dealings.”
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Sri Lanka has borrowed heavily from China for infrastructure projects, some of which ended up as white elephants.
In 2017, Sri Lanka was unable to repay a $1.4 billion loan for a port construction in the south of the country and was forced to lease out the facility to a Chinese company for 99 years.
Near the port is the Rajapaksa Airport, built with a $200 million loan for China, that was so sparingly used that at one point it was unable to cover its electricity bill.
