What happened behind the Sri Lanka crisis?｜ Beijing Observation

The state's finances are completely bankrupt, the people go to the streets, the presidential palace is shocked, the prime minister, and several ministers fled -recently, the real stagnation of these "magical reality" pushed Sri Lanka to the cusp. According to the Associated Press on the 14th, Sri Lanka President Rajapaksa boarded a special flight from Saudi Airlines to Singapore and then went to Saudi Arabia. With the departure of Rajapaksa, the country, known as the "Indian Ocean Pearl" is in crisis.

When we look at the timeline, we will find that the crisis of Sri Lanka is far -reaching.

Since last year, Sri Lanka has fallen into a serious economic crisis, and the demonstration of violence in parade has intensified, leading the country to enter a state of storms. The occurrence of the international situation such as the outbreak of the Russian -Ukraine conflict and soaring energy prices became the last straw that crushed the country.

On the evening of July 9, local time, as many as more than 100,000 demonstrators broke through the police's defense line, broke into and occupied the official residence of President Rajapaksa. The contents of the people protest include the shortage of food, fuel, and medical supplies and services, as well as the country's unable to repay debt, inflation, and more than 6 million people's unavailable financial and humanitarian crisis.

It is worth noting that the focus of the general protest is Rajapaksa. According to the analysis, in addition to external impacts, the frequent failure of domestic economic reforms and the debt crisis have stepped up the country step by step to the edge of collapse. Among them, Rajapaksa takes a considerable part of responsibility.

Gotapa Rajapaksa has a more than ten years of experience in the United States before returning to Sri Lanka, which also makes Rajapaksa follow the values ​​of the West in the West in the national governance concept.

For example, in April 2021, Rajapaksa had promoted radical green environmental protection policies in Sri Lanka, banned imports and use chemical synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and ordered the country to turn to organic food production.

As a tropical island country in the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka's agricultural environment is superior and is one of the main economic sources of the country. However, most Sri Lanka's private farms are unable to engage in the so -called green agriculture. After being banned from using chemical synthetic fertilizers, major agriculture such as tea, coconut, and rubber has been greatly reduced, and the agricultural economy has been fatal.

In October 2021, the Sri Lankan government stopped this social experiment that caught the West and entered the state of food emergency to implement allocation and price control. However, there are so little foreign exchange reserves and fiscal funds. The people have to line up for a few hours to get a bit of rice and food. The agricultural reform hosted by Rajapaksa failed, and was considered to laid seeds for the grain crisis and economic collapse.

In addition to agricultural development, Sri Lanka pursues the concept of mainstream the United States on debt issues: does not pay attention to government debt, advocates increasing the proportion of domestic debt, believes that the government can expand its expenses, support employment with fiscal deficit, and fund public products. For a long time, foreign debt has not decreased, which has also caused severe inflation in China.

From the analysis of external factors, since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia in 2020, the number of tourists from the world, especially the United States and Europe, has decreased sharply, which has led to severe damage to the country's tourism industry. Only foreign exchange losses in the tourism industry have reached billions of dollars each year. The tourism industry can be described as a Sri Lanka foreign exchange pillar, accounting for 14%of foreign exchange income. The Russian and Ukraine conflicts between Russia and Ukraine are important tourists from Sri Lanka. In January of this year, Russia and Ukraine traveled to Sriors accounted for a quarter of the total number of tourists traveling in Sriors. In addition, Russia is still the second largest tea export market in Sri Lanka. In short, the Russian -Ukraine conflict has further weakened Sri Lanka's foreign exchange capacity in terms of tourism and agricultural exports.

On the other hand, the Russian conflict also impacted Sri Lanka's food imports. More than 40%of Sri Lanka's grain imports from Ukraine, the conflict has caused the food supply from the direction of Ukraine. What's more serious, the Russian -Ukraine conflict has also led to rising commodities such as food and energy such as food and energy worldwide. The above -mentioned products in Sri Lanka depend on imports. In order to maintain normal economic operation, the government has been forced to spend more foreign exchange costs.

Recently, the hype of Western media is the so -called "Chinese debt has led to the economic collapse of Sri Lanka." In fact, China is only one of the creditor countries of Sri Lanka, not the most important. According to statistics, 80%of the country's current cumulative 51 billion US dollars of foreign bonds, 80%of them are borrowed from the international capital market in the form of sovereign bonds and regular financing instruments. Analysis believes that China's loans to Sri Lanka not only did not cause financial pressure on it, but contributed a large part of its strength to its economic development.

In the past ten years, China has invested more than $ 10 billion in infrastructure in Sri Lanka, mainly investing in roads, bridges, ports, and basic telecommunications facilities. According to reports, Sri Lanka's former dean of the Institute of International Relations and Strategic Research has stated that China has played a role that cannot be replaced in the aspect of making Si a "South Asian Economic Center". However, in the struggle of power in Sri Lanka, political parties generally cater to the hype of Western media. Instead, investing in China is the so -called "selling Sri Lanka interests."

It is worth mentioning that China has invested 10 billion yuan in Tota Port in Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka. In the early days of Rajapaksa, on the grounds of China's "debt trap" that had been speculated in the West, he wanted to overthrow the agreement between Sri Lanka and China on the Port of Tota, and eventually stopped because it could not pay huge compensation. Today, the port of Hanban Tota has become an important engine of Sri Lanka's economic development under the construction of China. During the visit to Sri Lanka in May this year, in order to deal with the crisis, Sri Lanka filed a request for debt restructuring to cope with the crisis.

In response, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zhao Lijian pointed out when responding that "whether China plans to provide debt deductions to Sri Lanka" pointed out that China will help Sri Lanka in the scope of power at its power. It is hoped that the Sri Lankan government will work with the people to overcome brief difficulties and usher in greater development.

At the press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the past two weeks, the situation in Sri Lanka has also been a topic of general concern for reporters.

On June 28, China's emergency humanitarian aid in Sri Lanka's first batch of grain to the Colombo International Container Terminal. The Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan went to the dock to welcome and attend the handover ceremony.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Zhao Lijian, said on June 30 that as a traditional friendly neighborhood, China always focused on the difficulties and challenges of Sri Lanka's current facing, and felt the same. We have also helped Sri Lanka's economic and social development within the scope that we can. From April to May this year, the Chinese government announced that it provided Sri Lanka with a total of 500 million yuan in emergency humanitarian assistance. This is the largest unpaid assistance since the outbreak of the Sri Lanka economic and people's livelihood crisis.

At a press conference on Monday (11th), a reporter asked Sri Lanka's debt involved in China. A spokesman Wang Wenbin said that China is willing to have a positive role in responding to the current difficulties, alleviating debt burdens, and achieving sustainable development for the relevant countries and international financial institutions.

With the upgrading of the situation, the questions of foreign media reporters have become more and more sharp, pointing directly at the relationship between China. At a press conference today (14th), a reporter asked questions that President Sri Lanka had left the country. What Chinese side is expected to have power vacuum? The spokesman Wang Wenbin once again reiterated his position on the Sri Lanka issue- "As a friendly neighbor and partner of Sri Lanka, China sincerely hopes that all walks of life from all walks of life will start from the fundamental interests of the country and the people. Improve and improve people's livelihood. "

In response to whether China plans to provide more financial assistance to Sri Lanka, Wang Wenbin has reiterated again that we have explained many times that China is willing to work with relevant countries and international financial institutions to continue to respond to Sri Lanka for current difficulties, alleviate debt burdens, achieve realization Sustainable development plays a positive role.

It is not difficult to find that "providing help" and "playing an active role" have always been the keywords of China on this issue. From the beginning of Sri Lanka's economic crisis, it has been running through. In addition to firmly clarifying the relationship between the neighbors of the NASA, China also gave the answer in the Sino -Sri Lanka's trade exchanges. At the regular conference of the Ministry of Commerce held today (14th), a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce Shu Jioting said that China and Sri Lanka are traditional friendly neighbors. History of cooperation. Regarding the difficulties faced by Sri Lanka, China will continue to help within the scope that can be used to support the Sri Lanka to restore the economy and improve people's livelihood at an early date.

Author 丨 Wang Beni, reporter from Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News in Beijing

Editor 丨 Yu Zheyi, editor -in -chief of Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News

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