But in 2009, the president had grown impatient. His 65th birthday was approaching the following year, and to mark the occasion he wanted a grand opening at the Hambantota port — including the beginning of an ambitious expansion 10 years ahead of the Port Authority’s original timeline.

    Chinese laborers began working day and night to get the port ready, officials said. But when workers dredged the land and then flooded it to create the basin of the port, they had not taken into account a large boulder that partly blocked the entrance, preventing the entry of large ships, like oil tankers, that the port’s business model relied on.

    Ports Authority officials, unwilling to cross the president, quickly moved ahead anyway. The Hambantota port opened in an elaborate celebration on Nov. 18, 2010, Mr. Rajapaksa’s birthday. Then it sat waiting for business while the rock blocked it.



kleinbl00:

The phrase the geopolitical posse has settled on is "debt book diplomacy." If you search for that phrase the only links you see are about China. The example the think tanks are currently freaking balls about is Vanuatu which has traditionally traded largely with Australia.

    Australia voiced concerns a few months ago that Vanuatu was slowly sliding into China’s orbit. In April, Fairfax Media, citing unnamed senior Australian defense officials, reported that China and Vanuatu were in discussions on a potential Chinese military base in the country. Both sides denied the report – Vanuatu quite angrily. What is undeniable, however, is that China has sought to become a major player in Vanuatu. China owns almost half of the country’s $440 million in foreign debt. A U.S. State Department report identified Vanuatu as one of 16 states that China was aiming to control via “debtbook diplomacy.” And since 2007, trade between China and Vanuatu has increased by a factor of six – Vanuatu actually imported more last year from China than from Australia.

(Geopolitical futures, paywalled)

A military base on Vanuatu would be the South Pacific equivalent of a Soviet military base on Cuba as far as our current trade and military alliances go.


posted 2128 days ago