BEIJING, Jan 15: Chinese leader Xi Jinping said relations between China and Sri Lanka faced a "historical opportunity" to foster ties, in talks with the island nation's President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Wednesday.
"China-Sri Lanka relations face a historical opportunity to build on the past and forge ahead," Xi told Dissanayake during the bilateral meeting in Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
The two sides should see ties from "a strategic perspective and build a China-Sri Lanka community with a shared future."
Leftist Dissanayake's visit to China comes after he was given a red-carpet welcome to India by President Narendra Modi during his first overseas trip as premier in December.
Dissanayake came to power in September and consolidated his power after his party won a landslide in snap parliamentary polls in November.
China and India are meanwhile competing for influence in the Indian Ocean region.
Sri Lanka sits astride the world's busiest shipping route, which links the Middle East and East Asia, giving its maritime assets strategic importance.
But Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign borrowings in 2022 during a crisis that caused months of food, fuel and medicine shortages.
China accounted for more than half of Sri Lanka's bilateral debt at the time of the economic crash.
In December 2017, unable to repay a huge Chinese loan, Sri Lanka handed its Hambantota port in the south of the island to a Beijing company on a 99-year lease for $1.12 billion, raising questions about Chinese investments in the country.
Meanwhile, China and Sri Lanka have agreed on more investment and economic cooperation, after China's President Xi Jinping met recently elected Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Beijing on Wednesday.
The countries signed a total of 15 cooperation documents, including agreements to cooperate on economic and technological development and aligning China's 'Belt and Road Initiative' with Sri Lanka's 2030 digital economy blueprint.
Specifics of the deals were not disclosed at the signing ceremony.
Dissanayake's visit to his country's largest bilateral lender comes after having first travelled to regional rival India.
Colombo secured a preliminary $10 billion bilateral debt deal rework with key lenders including China, Japan and India last June and a $12.5 billion bondholder deal in December. —AFP
