Nearly two dozen demonstrators hold up signs against a Chinese port city project in Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 19, 2021.
The Sri Lankan parliament passed a bill on May 20 to establish an economic body to oversee a high-end Chinese property development project on Sri Lanka’s waterfront, according to international media on May 22.
The name of the body is the Colombo Port City Economic Council. The bill, submitted by the Sri Lankan government, was passed by an overwhelming majority of 149-58 votes. The Sri Lankan Parliament has a total of 225 members.
The Chinese development project is under the China Port Engineering Company Colombo Port City, a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Group, with a total investment of US$1.4 billion. The project’s mission is to build a high-end urban complex in the heart of Colombo by reclaiming land, including a resort, amusement park, convention center, marina, residential development, financial district and a suite of green space facilities. China says this is a key cooperation project between China and Sri Lanka under the Belt and Road Initiative.
In exchange, China will receive a 99-year lease of 62 hectares of commercial land from the Sri Lankan government.
The port city project is seen as a lifeline to save the economy as the Sri Lankan government desperately needs foreign investment to blood the country’s economy after being hit hard by the New Crown (Chinese communist virus) outbreak. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has said in parliamentary debates that the port city will bring huge jobs and foreign investment.
But many in both Sri Lanka and India are concerned about the Chinese project, believing it will become a de facto military base or colony for the Chinese Communist Party.
Over the past decade, the Chinese Communist Party has provided a large number of loans for various projects in Sri Lanka, such as seaports, airports, roads, power plants and port cities. These loans have increased the country’s debt burden.
The Sri Lankan government had to “lease” the deep-water port of Hambantota to China for 99 years in 2017 due to its inability to repay the CCP loans.
Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court had previously held that the bill was in conflict with the country’s constitution and recommended that certain provisions of the bill be put to a referendum in order to make it law. Another recommendation by the Supreme Court was that other provisions would not require a referendum, but would need to be approved by a two-thirds majority of Parliament. The government could amend the bill to comply with the Constitution.
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