World News | Wary China Silent on Lankan President Rajapaksa Fleeing Sri Lanka

Beijing, Jul 14 (PTI) Warily watching the political crisis in Sri Lanka where it has billions of dollars of investments, China on Thursday kept mum over the fall of the Rajapaksa brothers who promoted its expansive infrastructure projects in the island nation facing an unprecedented economic turmoil.

Asked for China's comment on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing the country amid unprecedented public protests demanding his resignation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin reiterated Beijing's call for all parties in Sri Lanka to work together to revitalise the economy.

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“As a friend, neighbour and cooperation partner, China sincerely hopes that all sectors in Sri Lanka could bear in mind the fundamental interests of their country and people and work together in solidarity to overcome the current difficulties and strive to restore stability, revitalise the economy and improve people's livelihoods at an early date," Wang said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had a similar response when Gotabaya's elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned as the Prime Minister under intense public protests in May and fled to a naval base in the country.

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To a question, whether China has any plan to provide new financial assistance to Sri Lanka, whose economy has completely collapsed leading to massive uprising of people, Wang restated Beijing's oft repeated stand that “China stands ready to work with countries and international financial institutions to continue to play a positive role in supporting Sri Lanka's response to current difficulties and efforts to ease debt burden and realise sustainable development”.

Ever since Sri Lanka, which Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Colombo in 2014 termed as an “all-weather friend”, an encomium reserved by Beijing to its close ally Pakistan, embroiled in economic crisis, expectations were high within the island nation and abroad that China may step-in with aid to shore-up the island's fast depleting forex reserves leading to unprecedented energy crisis.

While India stepped in with over USD 3.5 billion line of credit to buy essentials like oil and gas, China, which has promised to consider a USD 2.5 billion loan, has extended USD 73 million assistance besides providing 1,000 tonnes of rice. However, it has not announced any bridge finance sought by Colombo.

After initial reluctance, China has agreed to back the IMF package to bailout Sri Lanka, similar to the international lender's assistance to Pakistan, which is also on the brink of economic crisis.

China last month rushed USD 2.3 billion to Islamabad to shore up the forex reserves of its all-weather ally but despite that Pakistan's economy appears teetering on the brink.

Chinese analysts say that the fall of Rajapaksas could be a blow to China's close ties with Colombo besides its extensive investments stretching over USD 10 billion in Sri Lanka.

Observers also opine that Beijing, whose expansive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects costing billions of dollars in Asia and Africa is increasingly getting cautious with forecasts that economies of several developing countries may face similar collapse as that of Sri Lanka.

China, they say, perhaps may crystallise its policy towards Sri Lanka and its projects after the crisis eases in the island nation, which may not appear to be in the near future.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)