On 2 April 2024, Global Strat View published NESA Center alum Asanga Abeyagoonasekera's latest Op-Ed, "Sri Lankan Prime Minister’s Beijing Visit an Invitation for Chinese Strategic Expansion."

"Six months before the presidential elections, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena visited China to meet Chinese Premier Li Qiang. During the meeting, Li Qiang said, 'China and Sri Lanka are strategic cooperative partners featuring sincere mutual assistance and ever-lasting friendship.' These strategic relations were cemented in 2014 by Mahinda Rajapaksa during President Xi’s visit to the island, which opened up access to many strategic areas, including the ports, energy, telecommunication, roads, security, and trade. Unfortunately, the Chinese projects under BRI were not a straightforward success story, which is discussed in my book ‘Teardrop Diplomacy.’ The BRI projects in Sri Lanka developed by burdening the economy with high debt and high-interest borrowing rates, with no expected returns, such as the empty airport without flights in Mattala and a Special Economic Zone at the Port City in Colombo still waiting for Chinese or foreign investment to flow in after years of development," writes Abeyagoonasekera.

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About the Author

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is an International Security and Geopolitics Analyst and Strategic Advisor from Sri Lanka. He is a Senior Fellow and Executive Director of the South Asia Foresight Network (SAFN) at the Millennium Project in Washington, DC. He is the author of the recent book Teardrop Diplomacy: China’s Sri Lanka Foray (2023) published by Bloomsbury.

About the Publisher

Global Strat View is an independent media group based in Washington, DC. Its team of professional journalists spans the Indian subcontinent, Europe, and North America.

The views presented in this article are those of the speaker or author and do not necessarily represent the views of DoD or its components.