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As I see it | Is China anyone’s ‘all-weather’ friend? Sri Lanka’s experience suggests otherwise
- Cash-strapped Sri Lanka faces its worst economic crisis in living memory, yet China has offered comparatively little to help its ‘all-weather’ friend
- Perhaps it’s time to retire the over-the-top phrases Beijing uses to describe its relations with others, if it cannot abide by them when the going gets tough
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Sri Lanka’s recent debt crisis is a stark reminder that even with the best of intentions, it’s hard for China to be an “all-weather friend”.
On Wednesday, Sri Lanka announced that it would call China, India and Japan to a donor conference to drum up more foreign assistance.
A few weeks earlier, the Indian Ocean island nation had said it expected creditor nations, including China and India, to help keep its bankrupt economy afloat until the government could clinch an International Monetary Fund bailout – and tackle its mountain of foreign debt.
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But surely expectations were higher that China, as an “all-weather friend”, would and should do more to help Sri Lanka out of its worst economic crisis since independence?
Perhaps because of its own Covid-induced slowdown, China’s response to Sri Lanka’s economic meltdown has been low-key, to say the least.
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Last month, Beijing offered to lend a “few hundred million dollars” for essential imports. But that amount falls far short of the US$500 million in foreign exchange Sri Lanka requires every month to cover its basic imports, according to the country’s central bank.
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