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18-02-2023
COLOMBO: As far as many residents of Sri Lanka’s capital are concerned, the last thing their island nation needs in the midst of its worst-ever economic crisis is another beach, the island nation’s 1,340km coastline is blessed with some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
Yet, Port City Colombo (PCC), a vast new Chinese-built reclaimed commercial zone in Colombo, recently unveiled an artificial beach facing the Laccadive Sea.
“The artificial beach is just greenwashing to attract international investors sustainability is a convenient buzzword,” Priyangi Jayasinghe, a researcher at Colombo’s Munasinghe Institute for Development, told media.
Jayasinghe is one of many local critics who fear that PCC is another Beijing-funded white elephant in the mould of controversial projects. They include the loss-making Hambantota International Port, which was leased to Chinese state-owned China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited in 2017 as Sri Lanka struggled to repay its foreign creditors, which include China, India and Japan as well as private lenders.
Critics say PCC, which is being developed on 269 hectares (665 acres) of reclaimed land, is unsustainable and will have negligible benefits for the nation’s ailing economy.
“PCC will make a very minor impact on the Sri Lankan economy. It will be a separate tax-free dreamland when the rest of the country is facing higher taxes to deal with the economic crisis,” Jayasinghe said.
CHEC Port City Colombo, which is developing PCC, rejects the criticism and insists the ambitious development project, funded under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to the tune of $1.4bn, will establish a world-class city for South Asia.
CHEC Port City Colombo (Pvt) Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), which in turn is a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Company Limited (CCCC), a majority state-owned enterprise with headquarters in Beijing.
Though scheduled for completion in 2041, construction has finished at parts of the site, including a pedestrian bridge and the artificial beach, which was scheduled to open in December but remains sealed off to visitors.
The project’s credibility received a boost in January from a high-profile visit by the United Kingdom’s former Prime Minister David Cameron. However, many locals, struggling with rampant inflation and food shortages, remain sceptical of more Chinese involvement in Sri Lanka’s economic affairs.
“And that over there is China,” a driver of a tuk-tuk motorised trishaw told Al Jazeera, pointing at the huge construction site for PCC while weaving through the congested midday traffic. “Every time I return to Colombo, the 
government has sold a bit more of the nation to China,” Prem Velautham, a Sri Lankan living in the UK who recently visited the site, told media. In reality, fears of Chinese ownership are based, at least in part, on misconceptions about the facts on the ground.
Much like the Hambantota Port, PCC is not owned by China or a Chinese company but 65 percent of the 178-hectare (440-acre) area of saleable reclaimed land will be held on a 99-year lease by a Chinese majority state-owned company.
“Given Sri Lanka’s role at the epicentre of the ‘debt trap diplomacy’ narrative and the well-documented troubles of the Hambantota seaport, it is not surprising that residents in Colombo or elsewhere are sceptical of flashy projects like this one they have good reason to be,” Austin Strange, the co-author of Banking on Beijing and an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Hong Kong, told media. (Int’l News Desk)
