{"id":137742,"date":"2023-10-18T15:01:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T22:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=137742"},"modified":"2023-10-18T15:01:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T22:01:24","slug":"the-smiling-face-of-chinese-interests-in-the-indo-pacific-david-cameron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2023\/10\/18\/the-smiling-face-of-chinese-interests-in-the-indo-pacific-david-cameron\/","title":{"rendered":"The smiling face of Chinese interests in the Indo-Pacific: David Cameron"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Politico<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Former British PM promotes controversial Colombo Port City project at investment conference in the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LONDON \u2014 It is a multi-billion-dollar plan to build a metropolis in the Indo-Pacific which critics fear may one day act as a Chinese military outpost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the vast Colombo Port City project has a new champion \u2014 former British Prime Minister David Cameron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cameron has been enlisted to drum up foreign investment in the controversial Sri Lankan project, which is a major part of Xi Jinping\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative \u2014 China’s global infrastructure strategy \u2014 and is billed as a Chinese-funded rival to Singapore and Dubai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cameron flew to the Middle East in late September to speak at two glitzy investment events for Colombo Port City, having visited the waterside site in Sri Lanka in person earlier this year. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His spokesperson said the former PM had had no direct contact with either the Chinese government or the Chinese firm involved. But Cameron’s lobbying for the scheme has drawn severe backlash from critics, who say his activities will aid China in its geopolitical ambitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, who was sanctioned by Beijing for criticizing its human rights record, said: Cameron of all people must realize that China\u2019s Belt and Road is not about help and support and development, it\u2019s ultimately about gaining control \u2014 as they\u2019ve already demonstrated in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope that he will reconsider the position he\u2019s taken on this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Loughton, another Tory MP sanctioned by China, said: The Sri Lankan project is a classic example of how China buys votes and influence in developing countries and then sends the bailiffs in when those countries can’t keep up the payments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cameron should be working to help wean vulnerable countries off Chinese influence and debt rather than tying them in more tightly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the roadshow<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Dilum Amunugama, Sri Lanka\u2019s investment minister who attended the investment events in the UAE last month, told POLITICO he believed Cameron was enlisted to convince Western investors to put their money into the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amunugama was at two events where Cameron spoke \u2014 one in Abu Dhabi with an audience of 100, and one in Dubai with an audience of 300.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main point he [Cameron] was trying to stress is that it is not a purely Chinese project, it is a Sri Lankan-owned project \u2014 and that is the main point I think the Chinese also wanted him to iron out,\u201d Amunugama said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Cameron is in charge of drumming up investment into the Chinese-funded Colombo Port City project | Ishara S. Kodikara\/AFP via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Sri Lankan minister said the decision to enlist Cameron was taken by the Chinese company, not the government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cameron\u2019s office said his involvement was organized by the Washington Speakers Bureau, a D.C.-based agency that books guest speakers for corporate events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His spokesperson said: David Cameron spoke at two events in the UAE organized via Washington Speakers Bureau (WSB), in support of Port City Colombo, Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contracting party for the events was KPMG Sri Lanka and Mr Cameron\u2019s engagement followed a meeting he had with Sri Lanka\u2019s president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, earlier in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Mr Cameron has not engaged in any way with China or any Chinese company about these speaking events. The Port City project is fully supported by the Sri Lankan government,\u201d his spokesperson added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spokesperson declined to say how much Cameron was paid for his time. Cameron traveled to Sri Lanka in January and visited the development, but his office said that he did so as a guest of the president and that there was no commercial aspect to that trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mired in controversy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Colombo Port City project has been controversial since its inception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was unveiled in 2014 by China\u2019s Xi <\/a>and Sri Lanka\u2019s then-president, Mahinda Rajapaksa. Three years later, Sri Lanka handed it over to Chinese control after struggling to pay off its debt to Chinese firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Multiple concerns have been raised about the project, including its environmental impact; U.S. warnings it could be used for money laundering; and fears that it will ultimately be used as a Chinese military outpost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts have warned repeatedly that China is using the project to extend its strategic influence in the region. Beijing has already used the nearby Hambantota port \u2014 also funded by Chinese loans \u2014 to dock military vessels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main developer behind the Colombo Port City Project, CHEC Port City Colombo Ltd, has pumped in an initial $1.3 billion. Its ultimate owner is the China Communications Construction Company, a majority state-owned enterprise headquartered in Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Golden era no more<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As prime minister, Cameron and his Chancellor George Osborne famously heralded a golden era\u201d of U.K. relations with China. Since leaving office in 2016, the ex-PM has come under heavy scrutiny over his lobbying activities, including for the now-collapsed finance company Greensill Capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The ex-PM has come under scrutiny for his lobbying activities, including for the now-bankrupt company Greensill Capital | David Hecker\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For a period Cameron was also vice-chair of a \u00a31 billion China-U.K. investment fund. The U.K. parliament\u2019s intelligence and security committee said this year that Cameron\u2019s appointment to that role could have been “in some part engineered by the Chinese state to lend credibility to Chinese investment.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam Hogg, a U.K.-China analyst who writes the “Beijing to Britain” briefing, said: As the ISC pointed out, China has a habit of utilizing former senior-ranking politicians to give credibility to their companies and projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a time when the Belt and Road Initiative is under intense scrutiny ahead of its 10th<\/sup> anniversary next week, Cameron\u2019s involvement will raise a few eyebrows.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, added: We can’t have a situation where the EU and U.S. are so concerned about the Belt and Road Initiative that they’re pumping billions into alternative projects, while our own former PM appears to be batting for Beijing.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy Politico Former British PM promotes controversial Colombo Port City project at investment conference in the Middle East. LONDON \u2014 It is a multi-billion-dollar plan to build a metropolis in the Indo-Pacific which critics fear may one day act as a Chinese military outpost. Now the vast Colombo Port City project has a new champion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}