Cục Tài chính Mỹ cho cảng Sri Lanka vay để chống lại ảnh hưởng của Trung Quốc

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A U.S. foreign development agency (cơ quan phát triển nước ngoài) announced on Wednesday it would lend $553 million to establish a deepwater (nước sâu) shipping-container terminal (nhà ga, cảng) at the Port of Colombo in Sri Lanka, expanding America’s effort to finance infrastructure around strategic (chiến lược) parts of Asia.

The loan package is tied to Adani Ports, part of a conglomerate closely linked with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India that is still wobbling (chao đảo) from a short-seller’s attack in January. Adani will help develop the terminal with Sri Lankan partners.

The money from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation resembles the kind of big-ticket deals that China’s development banks have struck around the world over the past decade. Under its Belt and Road Initiative, central to the foreign policy of President Xi Jinping, China made loans to build up ties around Asia, including in Sri Lanka. Now the United States, and to some extent India, intends to catch up — or even to improve on the Chinese record.

The Development Finance Corporation was created during the Trump administration to bankroll (tài trợ) international infrastructure projects, cooperating with the State Department to support U.S. foreign policy (chính sách đối ngoại) and curb (kiềm chế) Chinese influence (ảnh hưởng).

... Under the Rajapaksas, the ruling family (gia tộc cai trị) that led Sri Lanka until the country’s economy collapsed in 2022, Chinese banks and engineering firms built a huge deepwater port at the island’s relatively remote southern shore. Hambantota, the name of that project, was the white elephant in the room (một vấn đề hệ trọng ngay trước mắt nhưng mọi người đều tránh nói về nó) during Wednesday’s inaugural (khai mạc) declarations.

Built at a cost of more than a billion dollars and under terms that Sri Lanka could never repay, Hambantota, set in a stronghold (thành trì) of Rajapaksa political power, was eventually forfeited (tịch thu) to China under a 99-year lease, along with 15,000 acres of nearby land.

source: nytimes,