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.
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.
(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.