President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and asked him to consider easing repayment conditions such as extending the deadline for payment of debt to China, which is said to amount to at least 390 billion yen in Japanese yen. rice field.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with President Rajapaksa and others in Sri Lanka on the 9th.
According to the Sri Lankan government, Foreign Minister Wang said in a meeting that "China will always support Sri Lanka as a close friend," and President Rajapaksa thanked China for providing a vaccine for the new coronavirus and financial support. That is.
At the meeting, President Rajapaksa also called for consideration of easing debt repayment conditions, such as extending payment deadlines, in order to survive the economic crisis in Sri Lanka that occurred in the midst of the global spread of infection.
China is promoting infrastructure investment in countries such as Asia under the "One Belt, One Road" giant economic zone concept, of which Sri Lanka has at least 3,388 million dollars in debt to China and 390 billion yen in Japanese yen. The swelling of Hambanthota Harbor in the south has been transferred to the Chinese side for 99 years due to the delay in repayment.
In Sri Lanka, the problem of so-called "debt traps", in which debt to China swells and China's influence increases as a result, has been pointed out, but as we are stuck in the economic crisis, our dependence on China is deepening.