Chinese leader Xi Jinping said on Wednesday that China-Sri Lanka relations face a “historic opportunity” to strengthen ties, during his talks with the island nation’s president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
“China-Sri Lanka relations face a historic opportunity to build on the afterlife and move forward,” Xi said at the bilateral Dissanayake assembly in Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
The two sides analyze their relations from a “strategic point of view and build a network of shared future China-Sri Lanka. “
Leftist Dissanayake’s visit to China comes after he was given a red-carpet welcome to India by President Narendra Modi during his first overseas trip as premier in December.
Dissanayake came to power in September and consolidated his power after his party won a landslide in snap parliamentary polls in November.
China and India are vying for the Indian Ocean region.
Sri Lanka straddles the world’s busiest shipping route, connecting the Middle East and East Asia, giving it strategic maritime importance.
But Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign loans in 2022, a crisis that led to months of shortages of food, fuel and medicine.
China accounted for more than a portion of Sri Lanka’s bilateral debt at the time of the economic crisis.
In December 2017, unable to repay a huge Chinese loan, Sri Lanka gave up its Hambantota port in the south of the island to a Beijing company in a 99-year lease for $1. 12 billion, raised doubts about Chinese investments in the country.
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