COLOMBO: Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi successfully wrapped up his first New Year trip in Sri Lanka, the last leg of a multinational trip that also took him to three African countries and the Maldives, with deepened mutually beneficial pragmatic cooperation, which Chinese observers said cannot be shaken by some noise from Western media that labeled such cooperation “debt trap” or “white elephant projects” in order to smear China and sow discord between China and other countries.
During a meeting with Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Colombo, Wang called on China and Sri Lanka to discuss the restart of talks on free trade agreement by tapping the opportunities of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement and China’s vast market. Wang said the Colombo Port City and Hambantota Port projects could be engines for pushing forward bilateral cooperation.
China proposed a forum on the development of Indian Ocean island countries to build consensus and synergy, and promote common development, in which Sri Lanka can play an important role, said Wang.
According to the government of Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa expressed his gratitude to the Chinese government for its continued support in providing Sinopharm vaccines to Sri Lanka for the successful implementation of the COVID-19 vaccination program. He also said it would be “a great relief” to the country if the attention could be paid on restructuring the debt repayments as a solution to the economic crisis that has arisen in the face of the pandemic.
Western media like AFP and Reuters, reporting the president’s remarks, slandered cooperation projects between China and Sri Lanka as “white elephant projects” with low returns.
In response, Wang Wenbin, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at Monday’s media briefing that calling the cooperation projects between China and Sri Lanka “white elephants” is completely untrue, as China has been helping Sri Lanka’s development within its capacity and will continue to do so and the bilateral cooperation is welcomed by local people.
Observers believe China would offer a helping hand to Sri Lanka to deal with its financial crisis through friendly negotiations, as China has been easing many developing countries’ debt burden and has the highest deferral amount among G20 members. But they stressed that as China only accounts for 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s foreign debt, it is imperative for other lenders such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Japan and the US to jointly help the island nation tide over difficulties rather than just sit back or even smear China’s efforts. -The Daily Mail-China Daily News Exchange Item
