Issues Sri Lanka faces

vis-à-vis Chinese presence

Colombo Port City: Geopolitical and sovereignty concerns, an ‘environmental time bomb’, and land ownership issues.

Kerawalapitiya Gas Tender: Lakdhanavi Ltd., a subsidiary of LTL Holdings (PVT) Ltd, a subsidiary of CEB, submitted a tender rate for the 300 MW Kerawalapitiya LNG plant. The tender was not awarded to it. The potential loss is Rs. 42.5 billion to Sri Lanka over a 20 year period.

Radar and monitoring equipment being installed at the Ruhuna University: Exact movements of Sri Lanka Navy and the Air Force can be tracked from here; it would also hamper monitoring activities at the Hambantota Port. Lotus Tower: Opaque nature transactions make it suspicious whether it is an intelligence listening post. All Sri Lankan radio communication could be monitored, if so. In Colombo Port, CICT is making profit at the expense of

the SLPA.

Provided free laptops to MPs and mobile phones to Ministry of Foreign Affairs. All of them are made in China.

Zheng He exploration: Oceanographic survey around Sri

Lanka’s waters.

Borrowing again from China to repay debts to China. Grandfathered projects and then took them over as they were not viable. Then asked for more concessions from Sri Lankan Government to make them viable.

Chinese law firm are opening offices in Sri Lanka.

High profile construction sector is increasing. Local companies are losing business. Dependency as high as 40 percent. In December 2018, Chinese workers clashed with Sri Lankan security personnel in Colombo.

Chinese tour operators and guides are taking over from local tour guides. Incident in Sigiriya in July 2018, where a fight broke out between Sri Lankan guides and Chinese guides and a member of the Sigiriya Tour Guide Association was injured.

Payments made directly via “We Chat” to owners for

renting of apartments and food bills of restaurants.

Airport expressway: Cost US $ 292 million for 25.2km. Matara-Beliatta railway line: The stretch of 26.75 km cost Sri Lanka US$ 278 million. It translates into per km cost of US$ 10.4 million (LKR 1.9 billion per km).