Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa plays downs links with China on trip to India
- Ties between Colombo and Beijing are ‘purely commercial’, new leader says
- If other nations don’t invest in island nation, Beijing will take its Belt and Road Initiative ‘all over’, he says
Sri Lanka’s newly elected President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa sought to play down his country’s links to China on his first trip to neighbouring India.
The ties between Colombo and Beijing were “purely commercial”, he said in an interview with Indian newspaper The Hindu on Saturday.
Rajapaksa encouraged companies from around the world to invest in Sri Lanka.
“I want to tell India, Japan, Singapore and Australia and other countries to also come and invest in us,” he said.
China has been accused of creating debt traps in Sri Lanka with the construction of white elephant projects.
Despite those concerns, Beijing earlier this year agreed a US$1 billion loan for a new road project.
Professor Madhav Nalapat of Manipal University in India said Rajapaksa would continue to pursue “mutually beneficial commercial contacts with Beijing while remaining close to India and the US on matters relating to the Indo-Pacific”.
Days after his election victory, Rajapaksa met Chinese ambassador to Sri Lanka Cheng Xueyuan in Colombo and agreed that the new president would visit Beijing soon.