Director of the Belt and Road Initiative Sri Lanka, Maya Majueran K., stressed that the links and economic relations in particular between Sri Lanka and China have grown so dramatically over the past decade that China has become an important economic partner of Sri Lanka. On the joint Belt and Road Initiative between the two countries, Majueran points out that China has invested a large amount of money to develop infrastructure (mega-projects) and trade routes in the initiative. In a related context, analysts expressed concern about the environmental impact of infrastructure development and the geopolitical and sovereignty issues that come from the partnership with China which may carry a significant amount of debt on the country.
“Belt & Road Initiative in Sri Lanka (BRISL) denotes mutual benefits and win-win cooperation. It means whereby both parties could obtain benefits. In the meantime, China is expecting to give their surplus finance resources and production oversupply expertise in their building construction and other such expertise resources to other countries through the BRISL project. Whereas a country like Sri Lanka where we do not have many resources such as infrastructures and highways. Especially our Railway system still runs through the Coal system. And also only two terminals in our Colombo harbor are up to International Standards. And, we could not gain many investments profits through Hambantota harbor as we expected. Such developing countries like Sri Lanka and also host countries benefit through BRISL as well as China.”
“Major percentage of the budget has been allocated to the National Security and Defense Sector in Sri Lanka. There was not a sufficient budget allocation for the infrastructure development by the GoSL at the same time. After the 26-years of war, the GoSL decided to seek financial assistance from China to develop the infrastructure. Sri Lanka is situated in a very crucial geo-strategical location where nearly 80% of the trade ship travels are sailed through (Maritime Campus) the Sri Lankan Ocean, thus the “One belt One Road” is a quiet imperative project to Sri Lanka as well as the region. That is the reason why well before the Chinese government showed an interest in the Hanbantota port, the Sri Lankan government was interested and planning to build a port in Hambantota in collaboration with the Canadian-International Development Agency (CIDA), and it was surveyed by a Denmark Company, and we sort financial aid first and foremost from the United States of America, but it was not realized. Only after that Sri Lankan Government was enforced to seek assistance from China.”
“By now, Sri Lanka has been entrapped by China, India, and America, in a geopolitical trap. By the 1980s China strategizes for the Silk Road to initiate China’s One Belt & One Road project. Restructuring China along that process they identify Sri Lanka as an incubator. Sri Lanka is considered a geopolitical and geo-strategical hub. China has been able to achieve their aims with then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK), President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and President Maithripala Sirisena and Premier Ranil Wickramasinghe now with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. When China initiates a project, the United States and India also covertly launched Indo-Pacific black Operations to maintain the regional hegemony against China. Altogether all three countries have three main aims, which are geo-political and geo-strategical. Commonly, two aims, 1st one is Sino-Indo-American collaboration, since our rulers are puppets and have no responsibility towards the country, and also they don’t think geopolitically and only consider fattening themselves, and they are easily trapped by all three countries. We are innate thieves.”