Sri Lanka: 'Chinese Colonialism'

from thesundayleader.........

"Are you in the government? Are you in the Rajapaksa family? If not, then the Chinese government is probably no great friend to you.

The Chinese government’s relationship is state to state, not person to person. It is important to remember this, and doubly important to remember that you, unlike Louis XIV or Mahinda VI, are not the state.

The Chinese are building ports, infrastructure and public spaces. Remember who did that last time? It was the British. The British colonial regime built roads, railways, infrastructure and the artificial port of Colombo. They imported docile labourers from India and paid off Sri Lankan elites to serve the regime. They also introduced legislation to allow for the outright sale of land.

What’s happening today? The Chinese are loaning money for road and rail projects in the north. They’re also giving loans for power and infrastructure and they built the artificial port of Hambantota. They import cheap Chinese labor, or deport their own prisoners as forced labor. In the process, they have bought off the Rajapaksa family with arms and funds. That family is now introducing legislation to allow foreigners to buy land outright and has already sold land near the Galle Face Green to a former arms supplier.

There is no doubt that the British pillaged the country and poisoned race relations. The price for casting off that colonial hangover, however, seems to be another stiff drink from the same wretched quaff.
That colonialism consisted of Sri Lankas elite’s selling off the country’s resources to make the British Empire colossally wealthy and secure. Chinese colonialism consists of the Rajapaksa family selling off Sri Lanka’s resources with the added innovation of doing most of it through loans, thus making Sri Lankan taxpayers foot the bill for their own subjugation"...............READ MORE