Comments by "Tsunami Force Commander" (@phillipchan6919) on "Mess in the Maldives | Inside South Asia | WION" video.
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@HimanshuMahajan-zn3nq You need to brush up on your knowledge. These articles clearly states the port was first offered to India:
Articles 1: “”They approached us for the port at the beginning, and Indian companies said no,” said Mr. Menon, the former Indian foreign secretary. “It was an economic dud then, and it’s an economic dud now.””
Articles 2: “By Jamie Tarabay, CNN
14 minute read
Updated 10:27 PM EST, Sun February 4, 2018
CNN
—
When Sri Lanka’s government first looked to develop a port on its southern coast that faced the Indian Ocean, it went not to China, but to its neighbor, India.
Then-Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said he urgently needed funding to transform the harbor of his home town and asked Indian officials for help with the project.
“It was offered to India first. I was desperate for development work, but ultimately the Chinese agreed to build it,” Rajapaksa said in an interview with Singapore’s Straits Times in 2010.
Beijing invested $1.5 billion in 2010 to build the port.
The venture was considered economically unviable and indeed, in the years that followed, the port sat empty and neglected, and Sri Lanka’s debt ballooned.
But India’s economic foresight might have cost it in terms of strategic geopolitics, since the debt incurred on the port and the surrounding infrastructure undertakings now belong to its great rival.
China’s official licensing of the port in December last year gives it yet another point of access over a key shipping route, and the prospect of providing it with a sizeable presence in India’s immediate backyard and traditional sphere of influence, bringing China closer to India’s shores than New Delhi might like.”
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@HimanshuMahajan-zn3nq “
CNN
—
When Sri Lanka’s government first looked to develop a port on its southern coast that faced the Indian Ocean, it went not to China, but to its neighbor, India.
Then-Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said he urgently needed funding to transform the harbor of his home town and asked Indian officials for help with the project.
New Delhi showed little interest in funding a costly and massive port construction project in the underdeveloped fishing village of Hambantota, a district that had been crushed by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004.
“It was offered to India first. I was desperate for development work, but ultimately the Chinese agreed to build it,” Rajapaksa said in an interview with Singapore’s Straits Times in 2010.
Beijing invested $1.5 billion in 2010 to build the port.
The venture was considered economically unviable and indeed, in the years that followed, the port sat empty and neglected, and Sri Lanka’s debt ballooned.
But India’s economic foresight might have cost it in terms of strategic geopolitics, since the debt incurred on the port and the surrounding infrastructure undertakings now belong to its great rival.”
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