Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited Sri Lanka on Wednesday to inaugurate a hydropower plant and irrigation project, while Russia took partial control on Friday of an airport built by China – two signs that other members of the axis of tyranny are stepping in to clean up the wreckage from China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) debacles.
Sri Lanka is a prime example of a developing nation lured into ruinous debt by BRI, which tends to saddle China’s client states with loans they can never repay for infrastructure projects that prove much less profitable than promised. Sri Lanka infamously handed over control of its Hambantota Port to China in 2017 when it was unable to make its BRI loan payments.
Sri Lanka’s finances
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