China’s $1 Billion White Elephant
- Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port spurs worries in India, Japan
- Operator China Merchants is ‘hell bent’ on turning it aound
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Each year roughly 60,000 ships vital to the global economy sail through the Indian Ocean past a Chinese-operated port on the southern tip of Sri Lanka. Almost none of them stop to unload cargo.
The eight-year-old Hambantota port -- with almost no container traffic and trampled fences that elephants traverse with ease -- has become a prime example of what can go wrong for countries involved in President Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road” trade and infrastructure initiative. Sri Lanka borrowed heavily to build the port, couldn’t repay the loans, and then gave China a 99-year lease for debt relief.