{"id":58562,"date":"2018-03-26T17:42:08","date_gmt":"2018-03-26T22:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=58562"},"modified":"2018-03-26T17:44:43","modified_gmt":"2018-03-26T22:44:43","slug":"tells-guardiannewspaper-that-five-marriages-at-least-have-taken-place-in-hambantota-between-chinese-workers-and-local-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=58562","title":{"rendered":"Ven. Beragama Gnanathilaka Thero Tells “Guardian” Newspaper That Five Marriages At Least Have Taken Place in Hambantota Between Chinese workers and Local Women."},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBy<\/p>\n

Michael Safi and Amantha Perera<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The biggest game changer in 100 years\u2019: Chinese money gushes into Sri Lanka<\/em><\/p>\n

Little disturbs the serenity of Guan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion, as her statue sits in contemplation at the centre of Mattala Rajapaksa international airport.<\/p>\n

The last flight from the airport departed at 7.50am. The next is scheduled for 7.50am tomorrow. In the meantime check-in counters are empty, car rental desks deserted, and the only sign of life a handful of staff laughing around an information desk who disperse when a visitor arrives.<\/p>\n

Built to handle one million passengers each year, Mattala Rajapaksa saw just over 50,000 people in 2017. Since it opened four years ago the gleaming facility in Hambantota district, on Sri Lanka\u2019s south coast, has become known as the emptiest international airport in the world.<\/p>\n

It is a symbol of the promise and peril of a fierce contest under way in south Asia. While most international attention has been focused on the South China Sea, on its western border China has been aggressively expanding its presence in the Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh \u2013 rattling the regional kingpin, India, and watched warily by the west.<\/p>\n

\u201cChina\u2019s penetration of south Asia is the biggest game changer in 100 years,\u201d says Constantino Xavier, a fellow at the thinktank Carnegie India. \u201cThe Russians tried, the Americans tried. This is the first time since at least world war two you have a massive power contesting the Indian state.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chinese money has gushed into south Asia and especially Pakistan in the past decade, and billions more has been promised as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing\u2019s ambitious bid to create a new Silk Road of trade routes around the world.<\/p>\n

In the Maldives the Chinese government or state-owned enterprises have provided loans or investment for more than 20 projects, according to new analysis by thinktank Gateway House, with the largest three projects alone worth nearly 40% of the Maldivian GDP.<\/p>\n

Nepal, which shares an open border with India, is hosting at least two dozen Chinese investments. <\/p>\n

Beijing\u2019s interests in Bangladesh are estimated to be worth up to $35bn. But few regions in the neighbourhood have been transformed as dramatically as Hambantota, about five hours\u2019 drive from the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.<\/p>\n

Surrounded by acres of paddy fields and banana trees, between fishing villages and food stalls, enormous pieces of modern infrastructure now line the Hambantota landscape. They are ghostly sites. More cows than cars ply a new expressway. A convention centre that hosted the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in 2013 now offers cheap rates to wedding parties. A newly built hospital has never admitted patients, instead providing accommodation to Chinese migrant workers.<\/p>\n

They were built in the fury of development that followed the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, fuelled by $8bn borrowed from China by the previous president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who dreamed of turning his ancestral home into a tourism and business powerhouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was this sense that China would write us blank cheques,\u201d says one Sri Lankan government economist, not authorised to speak publicly.<\/p>\n

Hambantota is dotted with paddy fields and banana trees. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian
\nThe rates on Chinese loans were often no better than those on international capital markets, he says. The difference was China asked fewer questions. \u201cThere was no rigour applied to, how are you going to make this work, what\u2019s the business model here?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took a while for folks to realise we might be in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not every Hambantota project is deserted. In 2010 Sri Lanka agreed to pay a Chinese state-owned corporation $1.5bn to build a new port. Last December, struggling to make repayments, the government agreed to lease the port \u2013 and 15,000 acres surrounding it \u2013 to the same Chinese company for 99 years.<\/p>\n

The lease has alarmed Indian and western policymakers who worry China has won a strategic foothold in the Indian Ocean. It has also angered locals, who fear Sri Lanka is caught in a debt trap and will be forced to lease even more assets in the future.<\/p>\n

On 9 December a Chinese flag was raised over Hambantota port in place of Sri Lanka\u2019s. It lasted seven days. \u201cI went to the port administration office and told them I was willing to be shot to take down this flag,\u201d says Beragama Gnana Thilaka, the chief priest at a Buddhist temple near the site.<\/p>\n

Thilaka has led hundreds of monks in resistance to the lease of the port, which he likens to a colonial invasion. \u201cWhen Sri Lanka was colonised by the British there were Buddhist monks who played a pivotal role against them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The presence of Chinese workers in Hambantota has particularly galled opponents, on a backdrop of raging Buddhist nationalist sentiment on the island. Thilaka complains he knows of at least five marriages already between Chinese workers and local women.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they start coming here and have that much of an imprint, we will have a similar problem to what we\u2019ve had with the upcountry Tamils,\u201d he says. \u201cThere is no way to send these people back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watching on, analysts and western diplomats warn Chinese money is increasingly translating into political sway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat has changed is the sheer amount of [Chinese] influence, and how they\u2019re using this economic leverage for political and strategic purposes,\u201d says Tanvi Madan, the director of the India project at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC.<\/p>\n

Mohamad Nasheed, the exiled former Maldives president, calls China\u2019s involvement in his country an \u201cacute crisis\u201d, accusing it of propping up the current ruler, Abdulla Yameen, so it can keep acquiring territory in the archipelago. \u201cThey have weaponised foreign direct investment,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka has banned the Chinese navy from Hambantota port for now, but faces decades of debt repayments to Beijing. \u201cAny country that extends economic assistance, whether it\u2019s China, India or the US, has a strategic interest in doing so,\u201d says Dushni Weerakoon, the executive director at the Institute of Policy Studies in Colombo.<\/p>\n

Even in developed democracies such as Australia, governments are trying to adjust to more aggressive Chinese intervention, says Xavier, the Carnegie India fellow. \u201cYou can imagine what they can do with $24bn in Bangladesh in 10 years\u2019 time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inevitably a more intense rivalry also increases the potential for military confrontation. India and China have fought wars over disputed borders in the past, but in 2017 for the first time they squared off on the soil of a third country, when Bhutan called Indian troops in to stop Chinese road-building in a disputed area.<\/p>\n

India is doubling down on courting its neighbours, Xavier says, but also China\u2019s other rivals. Once described as \u201cestranged democracies\u201d, the US and India now boast closer ties than ever, and along with Japan and Australia have revived a high-level forum known as the \u201cQuad\u201d, aimed at ensuring the Indian and Pacific Ocean regions remain \u201cfree and open\u201d.<\/p>\n

Neither India nor China is likely to ever completely dominate the region, Madan says. Instead, she predicts the small states will keep their powerful patrons guessing. \u201cThey will play one country against the other and try to maximise the benefits,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is only going to become more complex, not less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Guardian<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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By Michael Safi and Amantha Perera The biggest game changer in 100 years\u2019: Chinese money gushes into Sri Lanka Little disturbs the serenity of Guan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion, as her statue sits in contemplation at the centre of Mattala Rajapaksa international airport. The last flight from the airport departed at 7.50am. The next …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Ven. Beragama Gnanathilaka Thero Tells “Guardian” Newspaper That Five Marriages At Least Have Taken Place in Hambantota Between Chinese workers and Local Women.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58562"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58562"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58565,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58562\/revisions\/58565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}