The only vessels at Sri Lanka’s $1.3bn Hambantota port, opened with fanfare seven years ago, are a handful of idle tugs and a small, half-sunken wreck. At a $209m international airport 20km to the north, two women attend the information desk 10 hours after the day’s second and final flight. Nearby lies a 34,000-seat cricket stadium that has hosted one professional encounter in the past two years.
7年前，斯里兰卡造价13亿美元的汉班托塔港在一片礼乐声中揭幕，如今在这里，仅有的船只是少数几艘闲置的拖船和一艘半沉的小船。在北边距此20公里的一个造价2.09亿美元的国际机场，两名女子在当天第二个、也是最后一个航班抵达10小时后才来照看问询台。附近坐落着一座拥有3.4万个座位的板球体育场，过去两年这里只主办过一次职业赛事。
The grand assets are all named after Mahinda Rajapaksa, the former president who, before his shock 2015 election defeat, borrowed huge sums from Chinese state entities to drive development in his lightly populated southern home district.
这些庞大资产都以斯里兰卡前总统马欣达•拉贾帕克萨(Mahinda Rajapaksa)的名字命名，在2015年意外败选之前，他从中国国有实体那里借入巨额资金，推动他人口稀少的南部家乡的发展。
But with the flagship port mired in heavy losses, the new government in July ceded a controlling interest to Beijing-controlled China Merchants Port in exchange for a $1.1bn debt write-off. The deal has been denounced by government critics as an erosion of sovereignty — and spurred regional powerhouse India into investments of its own, amid concerns in New Delhi about China’s growing regional clout.
但在这个旗舰港口蒙受巨额亏损之际，斯里兰卡新政府7月将港口控股权让与中国政府控股的中国招商局港口控股有限公司（China Merchants Port，简称：招商局港口），换得11亿美元债务减记。政府批评人士谴责这笔交易侵蚀国家主权，并刺激地区强国印度投资自己在斯里兰卡的港口——印度对中国日益增长的地区影响力感到担忧。
“Government is playing geopolitics with national assets? #stopsellingSL,” tweeted Namal Rajapaksa, Hambantota’s MP and son of the former president.
汉班托塔议员、前总统拉贾帕克萨的儿子纳马尔•拉贾帕克萨(Namal Rajapaksa)在Twitter上发帖称：“政府正用国有资产玩地缘政治？#别再变卖斯里兰卡”