{"id":98899,"date":"2020-02-11T15:40:19","date_gmt":"2020-02-11T22:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=98899"},"modified":"2020-02-11T15:43:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T22:43:00","slug":"china-commends-pm-rajapaksas-defence-of-bri-during-india-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/02\/11\/china-commends-pm-rajapaksas-defence-of-bri-during-india-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"China \u201ccommends\u201d PM Rajapaksa\u2019s defence of BRI during India visit"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Ada Derana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>China on Tuesday commended\u201d Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s remarks that the island nation has received a lot of benefits\u201d from Beijing\u2019s ambitious multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The BRI is an initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2013. It aims to link Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Gulf region, Africa and Europe with a network of land and sea routes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During his recent visit to India, Rajapaksa said his country has received a lot of benefits from the BRI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>China, in the last few years, received over $8 billion funding for its infrastructure projects. Sri Lanka handed over its Hambantota port to China in 2017 as a debt swap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When asked for a reaction to Rajapaksa\u2019s remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said, China commends the comments made by Prime Minister Rajapaksa\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>China and Sri Lanka share a strategic cooperative partnership based on sincere mutual assistance and ever-lasting friendship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on Sri Lanka\u2019s development needs, China offered loans to support its infrastructure building and other major domestic projects concerning people\u2019s livelihood. These projects and loans have boosted Sri Lanka\u2019s economic growth, created a large number of local jobs and contributed to the country\u2019s sustainable development,\u201d Geng said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those outcomes have been commended by the government and people of Sri Lanka. China stands ready to strengthen BRI cooperation with Sri Lanka to deliver more benefits to the two people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Source: PTI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Ada Derana China on Tuesday commended\u201d Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s remarks that the island nation has received a lot of benefits\u201d from Beijing\u2019s ambitious multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI is an initiative launched by Chinese President Xi Jinping when he came to power in 2013. It aims to link [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98899","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=98899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}