{"id":218878,"date":"2021-05-08T14:02:29","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T08:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=218878"},"modified":"2021-05-12T12:30:28","modified_gmt":"2021-05-12T07:00:28","slug":"china-buying-up-sri-lanka-is-that-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/china-buying-up-sri-lanka-is-that-true\/","title":{"rendered":"China Buying Up Sri Lanka \u2013 Is That True?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p2\"><strong><span class=\"s2\" style=\"color: #ff6600;\">By<a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Remy+Jayasekere\"> Remy Jayasekere<\/a> &#8211;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_214856\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Remy-Jayasekere.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-214856\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-214856\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Remy-Jayasekere-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Remy-Jayasekere-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Remy-Jayasekere-45x45.jpg 45w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Remy-Jayasekere.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-214856\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Remy Jayasekere<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">These days, newspapers and social media are full of stories about <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=China\">China<\/a><\/span> buying up Sri Lanka. <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Hambantota\">Hambantota<\/a><\/span> port and land<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>and <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Port+City\">Port City<\/a><\/span> in Colombo are among the favourite topics. The common thread among all the articles is that this buying spree will result in China exerting undue influence in Sri Lankan affairs and some even suggesting that that Sri Lanka will end up as a \u201cChinese colony\u201d. The extent of land involved is 15,000 acres ( around 60 sq km) in Hambantota and about 300 Ha (around 3 sq km) in the Port City in Colombo. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">It is interesting to compare this with what is happening in <span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><a style=\"color: #ff6600;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Australia\">Australia<\/a><\/span> \u2013 two countries with a population of<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>around 20 million each. Australia realises that they do not have the capital to develop all the development that can take place there and invites overseas investment. Chinese are the largest foreign investors in Australian agriculture with an interest (freehold or leasehold) in 9,199,000 Ha (91,990 sq km) of<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>land. This is 2.4% of all agricultural land in Australia. So, China holds in Australia, a land parcel that is larger than the total area of Sri Lanka. (66,000 sq. km). They increased their land holding by 0.5% during the last year. Other countries such as UK, USA, Canada and Netherlands are buying up Australian agricultural land and now, 13.8% of all agricultural land has a foreign interest. The Chinese also own large amounts of non- agricultural assets in Australia. For example, the port of Darwin and several large mines are owned by them. On the other hand Australia owns large parcels of land in other countries. The Australian case was quoted as an example but the situation in most developed countries is similar. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Hundreds of companies in other countries have factories in China, either owned by them or producing goods for them under contract. Your iPhone, Dell computer, Nike Shoes or the Panasonic TV is likely to have been made in China.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">As the above show, we live in a globalised economy with cross ownership of land and other assets everywhere. No one in the world complained when China owned so much land in Australia but everyone is shouting foul about these relatively small transactions in Sri Lanka. Is this a way of the West stirring up emotions to oppose the good relationship Sri Lanka has with China and the inevitable rise and rise of China.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Owning land and other assets in another country does not allow you to operate as you please in that country. You are subject to all the laws of that country and if one violates them action would be taken.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Therefore the fear of losing our control over those assets is completely unfounded.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Sri Lankans have a history of trying to own everything within Sri Lanka. Bandaranaike\u2019s boasted that they nationalised the oil companies and plantations among other things. This resulted in driving away all foreign investment \u2013 which Sri Lankans did not want anyway. The result was impoverishment when countries like Malaysia and Singapore invited foreign investment and thrived. If Australia thinks they do not have sufficient capital for development and invites overseas investment can we do it all by ourselves? <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">This \u201cdoing it all by ourselves\u201d mentality goes onto many other aspects of our lives \u2013 specially to our universities. We do not have a single university in the top 1000 universities list in the world. This is partly due to the lack of research done but mainly due to the lack of international collaborations, staff and students. If Nepal and Bangladesh can have overseas students and we send our students there, why cannot we have internationally competitive universities here. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">If we want to develop as a country, we need to start opening it up for investment and collaboration. Closing it up and trying to do it by ourselves is not the solution but is the path to stagnation and possible disaster. Western nations want that to happen so that they can have a foothold here and keep interfering in the mayhem it will cause.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><em><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"><b>*Remy Jayasekere \u2013 Chartered Engineer<\/b><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1444,"featured_media":133264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>China Buying Up Sri Lanka \u2013 Is That True? - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/china-buying-up-sri-lanka-is-that-true\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"China Buying Up Sri Lanka \u2013 Is That True? 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