Faced with an overseas debt crisis, will China change its ways?
It may have no choice
Few moments better encapsulate the hope and hubris of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global infrastructure binge, than the inauguration of Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port City in 2014. Xi Jinping, China’s president, attended in person, nodding approvingly as a project manager introduced the $15bn plan to build a high-tech offshore financial centre with a marina, hotels and luxury homes on 665 acres (269 hectares) of land reclaimed from the sea off Sri Lanka’s capital. Local officials likened the project to Dubai and Singapore. Mr Xi (pictured on his visit to Sri Lanka) called it a “major hub” of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road—the part of Belt and Road that aimed to reshape ocean trade by financing ports and related infrastructure without the pesky conditions that Western and multilateral lenders demand.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Party’s over”
From the August 27th 2022 edition
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