BEIJING, 23 March, 2021 (TON): Sri Lanka’s ambassador to China, Palitha Kohona has dismissed suggestions about Sri Lanka planning to extend a 99-year lease it granted to Beijing to run Hambantota port.

While referring to China’s ongoing power struggles with the United States and India, Palitha Kohona said, “The country would never be an unsinkable aircraft carrier posing a threat to anyone else.”

“If there is a negotiation, it’s very secretive and nobody would say it to you. They are whispering to each other so that nobody else hears it,” he said.

Funded and built by Chinese companies, the Hambantota project has been a focus for critics who accuse China of using “debt-trap diplomacy” to boost its geopolitical influence around the world.

Beijing also denied the deal was being reviewed, with Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbing saying the port’s operations were expanding.

However, Hambantota’s location at the southern tip of Sri Lanka, overlooking South Asia’s vital sea lanes, makes it a potential key maritime hub in the Indian Ocean. In 2017, Colombo agreed to hand over the running of the port when it was unable to make the repayments on the Chinese loans used to develop it.