China Gets Spurned in Sri Lanka

To woo the island nation of Sri Lanka, China lent more than $200 million to fund a new airport built by then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa near his hometown. It wasn’t one of the Chinese government’s better investments. Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport opened in 2013, but two years later there is only one scheduled daily flight, on Flydubai. In January, just after Rajapaksa’s reelection campaign ended in an upset loss, state-owned SriLankan Airlines canceled its flights to the airport.

To gain an edge over rival India, China’s leaders have spent years cultivating the governments of Sri Lanka and other nations in South and Southeast Asia. In Sri Lanka, located along the shipping lanes to and from the Middle East and Africa, China offered about $5 billion in loans over six years to fund such projects as a $290 million expressway and a $360 million port. In the deal with the highest profile, Rajapaksa embraced a Chinese plan to invest $1.4 billion in a new port city to be built on reclaimed land near the port of Colombo, the capital.