{"id":223307,"date":"2023-01-20T20:44:40","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T15:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=223307"},"modified":"2023-02-20T18:54:14","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T13:24:14","slug":"the-inevitable-geopolitical-lens-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-inevitable-geopolitical-lens-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"The inevitable geopolitical lens in Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>&#8211; The post is based on the article <strong>\u201cThe inevitable geopolitical lens in Sri Lanka\u201d <\/strong>published in<strong> The Hindu <\/strong>on <strong>20th January 2023<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: <\/strong>GS2- India and neighbourhood- Relations<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>&#8211; Trade and economic relationship with Sri Lanka<\/p>\n<p><strong>News<\/strong>&#8211; The article explains the status of Sri Lankan relationship with India and China. It also explains the official debt owned by Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the status of Sri Lankan relationship with India and China?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>China is a close partner of Sri Lanka and its <strong>largest bilateral creditor<\/strong>. At The end of 2021, the island owed about $7.4 billion or 19.6% of its outstanding public debt to China. It is called the <strong>\u201cChinese debt trap\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>India is Sri Lanka\u2019s closest neighbour with <strong>shared history and geography<\/strong>. It is Sri Lanka\u2019s <strong>third largest bilateral lender<\/strong> after Japan and a <strong>key development partner<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, India extended nearly $4 billion to Sri Lanka to help mitigate its crisis. Prior to 2022, Sri Lanka owed just under a billion dollars to India.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the reality of official debt owned by Sri Lanka?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The <strong>\u201cChinese debt trap\u201d<\/strong> narrative is irresistible. It owes a huge sum to a very powerful partner.<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka debt trap is <strong>not necessarily Chinese<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The largest chunk of Sri Lanka\u2019s foreign debt is<strong> owed to Western<\/strong>,<strong> private creditors holding International Sovereign Bonds<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the way forward for the narrative on official debt owned by Sri Lanka?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>There is a need for<strong> public scrutiny<\/strong> of official debt. It is required to <strong>access information<\/strong> fiercely guarded by the establishment.<\/p>\n<p>People should know about the rates of lending, period of the loan,the expenditure of borrowed money, and consequences of not repaying the debt.<\/p>\n<p>Projects should not merely be seen as Indian, or Chinese assisted. They need to be evaluated on the basis of their <strong>development potential for people<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source&#8211; The post is based on the article \u201cThe inevitable geopolitical lens in Sri Lanka\u201d published in The Hindu on 20th January 2023. Syllabus: GS2- India and neighbourhood- Relations Relevance&#8211; Trade and economic relationship with Sri Lanka News&#8211; The article explains the status of Sri Lankan relationship with India and China. It also explains the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-inevitable-geopolitical-lens-in-sri-lanka\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The inevitable geopolitical lens in Sri Lanka<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10498],"class_list":["post-223307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704392075},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223307\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}