Kathmandu, January 10
The Sri Lankan parliamentarian and former education minister has written a sensational letter to the Chinese president, accusing China of trapping his country in debt.
In a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, Vijayadasa Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s ruling party MP and former education minister, said his country was in a debt trap due to loans and projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Vijayadasa also accused the current ruling party and the previous government led by Mahinda Rajapaksa of trapping Sri Lanka in loans and projects under the BRI. The letter also said that the agreement reached between Colombo and Beijing paved the way for corruption.
The letter also said that Beijing had disturbed the Indian Ocean region by making Sri Lanka a victim of a power struggle with other nations, saying that the Chinese friendship had failed to be true and sincere.
”Your country initially bankrupted our country economically,” the letter said.
The letter also accused Mahinda Rajapakse of taking a Chinese loan at an interest rate of 6 per cent after other lenders offered loans at 0.01 to 1 per cent.
In a letter to Xi, Vijayadasa also accused China of taking extra money for covid vaccines and supplying substandard manure. The letter, written in January, was sent to President Xi Jinping ahead of the Chinese foreign minister’s visit to Sri Lanka this week, according to the Economic Times.
By Karuna Thapa
