Iron cannons installed by the Dutch to ward off colonial rivals still line Galle Face Green, a grassy, mile-long promenade along the Colombo seafront. Further out to sea, within range of the guns, a new world power is leaving its mark on Sri Lanka’s capital.
Currently, Port City is just a flat expanse of blank land jutting out into the ocean, growing a fraction larger each day, as dredging ships pour what will eventually amount to 65 million cubic metres of sand.
Within a few years, however, Port City will be the site of glass skyscrapers, a busy financial district, hospitals, hotels and even a theme park. Across the world, Chinese companies are developing President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative by building new roads, ports and bridges – but in Sri Lanka they are building a whole new metropolis.
Q&A Cities of the New Silk Road: what is China's Belt and Road project?
China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a huge, $1tn infrastructure project to better connect China – and Chinese goods – with the rest of the world. It is meant to be a 21st-century "silk road", made up of a "belt" of overland corridors (including roads, bridges and railways) and a maritime "road" of shipping lanes.
Its wider ambitions are harder to pin down. Is it a bid by China for world domination, or simply a move to prop up Chinese companies at home? Is there a grand strategy, or is it just a rebranding of existing projects?
In Cities of the New Silk Road we
have endeavoured to find out, by exploring the project's tangible
results so far – from the newly built city of Khorgos on the Kazakhstan
border to Duisburg, dubbed “Germany’s China city”. Our correspondents
have reported from the “next Dubai” rising out of the sea in Sri
Lanka, the nascent port of Gwadar in a restive province of Pakistan, the
sleepy Tanzanian village that could be transformed into Africa’s
largest port, and more.
Nick Van Mead
Read more: Cities of the New Silk Road
“It is a completely new city that will nearly double the size of Colombo right now,” says Janaka Wijesundara, a former director at Sri Lanka’s Urban Development Authority. “It is going to drastically change the entire landmass.”
Built on 665 acres (2.6 sq km) of land being reclaimed from the Indian Ocean, the city is designed to be a smaller Singapore, with its own business-friendly tax regime and regulations – and possibly a different legal system to the rest of Sri Lanka.
About 80,000 people are expected to live in the city, with another quarter of a million commuting in every day.
It is the largest single foreign direct investment in Sri Lankan history – a $1.4bn (£1.1bn) project by the state-owned Chinese engineering firm China Communications Construction Company (CCCC).
Artistic impressions of the future Port City show a brightly lit cityscape comparable to Dubai or London’s Canary Wharf. Developers say 1.5 million sq metres of office space will be available and private investment could reach $13bn. Dense high-rises give way to lower-slung residential areas, crisscrossed by parks and canals. A marina and beach line the city’s edges.
It is a world away from the fading bungalows, modest temples and
low-slung towers of present-day Colombo. But designers say they have
striven to have the new city reflect its roots, according to Daniel
Ringelstein, a director at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), the firm
that created the masterplan for the city’s central business district.
“We took inspiration from the colonial era,” he says, highlighting Colombo’s whitewashed colours, elegant arcades and “individually expressed, vertically proportioned buildings” as key influences.
The mega-blocks initially favoured by the developers were subdivided by the firm, he says, to create more walkable public space, mimicking the vivid street life of Sri Lankan cities and including an emphasis on natural shade.
The idea to expand Colombo’s business district outward on to land reclaimed from the sea was first proposed in 2004. The city, located along key shipping routes across the Indian Ocean, had been a hub for trade for more than 2,000 years.
But a bloody, 25-year civil war was killing thousands of people each year. Around the time authorities were mulling an early version of Port City, Colombo was struck by its first suicide bombing since 2001. The plans were shelved for five years.
By 2009, the war had been brought to a close, thanks to ruthless offensives by the Sri Lankan army. Then-president Mahinda Rajapaksa declared Sri Lanka open for business – but the spectre of what the UN calls “horrific” human rights abuses committed by both the army and the Tamil Tigers continued to ward off most investors.
One major country, however, was happy to fund Sri Lanka’s reconstruction. “China offered political cover for Sri Lanka towards the end of the war and had already started to play more of a prominent role on the economic front,” says Dushni Weerakoon, the executive director at the Institute of Policy Studies in Colombo. “After the war ended, it all just accelerated.”
In total, Rajapaksa borrowed about $8bn from China, much of which was spent on big-ticket infrastructure in his ancestral home district of Hambantota – which has since become a byword for the risks associated with Chinese loans. A major new airport in Hambantota receives just one flight each day. A new hospital serves as accommodation for Chinese guest workers. Attracting most scrutiny is a port that was upgraded using money borrowed from China. Earlier this year, unable to afford the repayments, Sri Lanka handed control of the port to a subsidiary of CCCC for at least 99 years.
The loans are part of a wave of Chinese investment in south Asia that has been described as “the biggest game changer in 100 years”, posing a serious challenge to India, the traditional power in the region.
In 2014, concerns over Chinese loans and corruption played a key part in Rajapaksa’s shock election defeat. The new government promised to rebalance Sri Lanka’s relationship with India, Japan and the west. Though Port City was being funded by foreign investment, rather than a loan, it became a victim of the backlash: the new prime minister, Ranil Wickramasinghe, shelved the project, claiming the dredging would destroy Colombo’s coast.
It was a win for environmentalists such as Hemantha Withanage, who heads the Colombo-based Centre for Environmental Justice (CJE). “The project is totally harmful to tourism and totally harmful to fishermen,” he says.
W Jude Namal Fernando, a fisherman and trade unionist in Negombo, north of Colombo, says the excavation of sand along the coast is destroying aquatic life and affecting the livelihoods of approximately 8,000 people who make a living from fishing. “The habitat belonging to various species has been demolished,” he says. “Corals have been removed, disturbing the ecological balance. And the fisheries industry consists of many others apart from fishermen – the livelihood of those who are on the shore and those who transport the catch to the market are also affected.”
The CJE argues that building the new city will require more natural resources than Sri Lanka can sustainably provide. The necessary sand alone would quickly exceed 100 million cubic metres, it says, threatening a fragile marine habitat and the livelihoods of 15,000 fishermen who work in the mining area. The CJE prices the value of the sand at $3.2bn, which it says outweighs the $1.4bn invested by CCCC subsidiary China Harbour in building the city.
The environmental group also warns commutes into the new financial district will add 300,000 daily car journeys, increasing airborne pollution in a city already exceeding World Health Organisation guidelines.
Yet about a year after suspending Port City, in March 2016 the new government announced work would soon resume. CCCC had been claiming to be losing $380,000 each day the project was on hold, and was threatening to sue for compensation. The government says its amended contract with the Chinese firm includes new environmental protections. In an attempt to ease Indian concerns, 20 hectares of Port City originally slated to be given to CCCC in perpetuity was instead granted on a freehold basis. The trucks and dredgers returned. Within two years, Port City was back on schedule, with land reclamation expected to finish by the end of 2018 and the first buildings expected to appear within four years.
As the project takes shape, key questions about how Port City will operate remain unanswered. The new contract has not been released to the public. Sri Lanka has promised its Chinese investors favourable tax rates and business-friendly regulations, but it may be limited in what it can provide, thanks to an IMF loan the country took in 2016 to help pay its debts. Sri Lankan ministers have also said Port City will operate under a separate “British-style” legal system – but what that will entail is unclear. Several requests were made to the government to clarify, with no response.
Sri Lankan activists have also raised questions about the power China Harbour will wield in the territory it leases in Port City, where it will effectively act as the landlord – a majority state-owned Chinese corporation deciding who can populate parts of a Sri Lankan city, and under what circumstances.
Urban planners say another issue is unresolved: how the burgeoning city will affect the rest of Colombo. “That was the missing piece to the brief,” says Ringelstein. “How is this city connected to the historic city centre back to the east?”
SOM’s masterplan tried to resolve the problem by creating patches of green space in Port City that will provide views of Colombo. They also encouraged the government to regenerate the western edge of the old city, creating a frontage that looks out on the new one.
“The idea is to use green space as a way to mediate between the old and the new,” Ringelstein says. “You would hate for this new project to suck the life out of the existing city today.”
Wijesundara, the former Urban Development Authority director, says developers may not even want to establish links between the old and new cities. “I will say that Port City will be a separate entity where only a certain class of people will live,” he says. “Services may be provided by the local people, but the money coming to them is questionable.”
Additional reporting by Arthur Wamanan.
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The Sri Lankans have every reason to be wary, they’ve seen this sort of thing before.
The Galle Face hotel in the picture at the top has to be in my top 3 hotels in the whole S/SE Asia region. Nothing better than sitting on the terrace sipping Lion Stout listening to the ocean. The doorman who used to greet us on arrival had been working there since 1942, although he sadly died 4 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kottarapattu_Chattu_Kuttan
agree....amazing hotel...dont need to go anywhere....just chill
Nice as that experience undoubtedly was, the view will be somewhat different with Port City on the horizon in future
Agree. It has such beauty. We stayed in the 90s during the civil war, it was very affordable then.
coke appple hollywood heroine coca radiation facebook, so called invisible colonialism of the last century, chine is using the only lane open.
We didn't start the fire, it was always burning...
Write in sentences please
"in sentences." You're welcome.
Is there any coincidence between Pompeo's announcement and back to back articles on China's OBOR?
No.
So hitherto Rockefeller foundation or the Guardian wasn't concerned about Port city.
No wonder people in developing countries doubt about the true intentions of western 'concerns'.
This is part of a long-running series. It must have been planned a long time ago.
Why do developers reclaim land from the sea, when the sea is going to rise by 1M by 2100?
And Sandbanks, which, by its very proximity to the sea has become one of the most exclusive and expensive places to live in the world suggests suggests a disconnect between the claims and reality.
Like the prophecies that shops would be empty and planes would fall from the sky after the millennium?
No, not like that at all.
One thing that has struck me about the Chinese is that the West created global empires by invading countries and blowing up infrastructure to get a toe hold whereas the Chinese are doing it by building the infrastructure.
"the West created global empires by invading countries and blowing up infrastructure"
No - check out the railways in India, the colonial buildings referenced in the article, the miens of Africa. Blowing up stuff isn't profitable.
Read up on the British Empire! The proof, or otherwise, of China’s altruistic nature will come once the locals inevitably rise up ...
I was fortunate enough to visit Sri Lanka last year and was speaking to a local man in his late 20s who actually half-wished for a return to the Colonial times (far too young to remember them of course) because there hadn't been a single metre of rail track laid since the British left.
Sri Lanka is just the most amazing country. Having seen the civil war, I am pleased that it is now stable and growing again.
I am not sure it is as stable as you think. Yes, several governments have introduced very ambitious plans to transform the country economically and there is no civil war. But the there are still undercurrents that are concerning, especially the governance of the country. It is no surprise that that many of the educated younger people look to Europe and Australasia as they believe there are no opportunities for them.
I do totally agree with you that it is a beautiful and amazing country.
Yes, I lived there during the civil war and go back fairly often. The anti-Muslim riots a few months ago were a warning that things can still kick-off fairly easily. Things are changing fairly quickly though, and generally for the better.
I lived in Sri Lanka during the war, and worked in the LTTE controlled Vanni. To be honest, that was the only part of the country I liked, although the LTTE leadership themselves were no better than any other fascist gang I have knowledge of. But once I crossed into government controlled Sri Lanka, I did not have a great liking for the place. Too much hustle and graft, and I genuinely felt I was seen by almost anyone I met as nothing more than a wallet on legs and their duty / responsibility was to help mer lighten my load, with people going to extreme lengths to try and run even the most basic of scams.
A few years after this I worked in Aceh province in Sumatra, both before, and then again after the 2004 tsunami. And while very similar in many ways to Sri Lanka, the people there were so utterly and totally different, with not even the most basic level of hustling going on, to an extent that I still look on this as having been the best place I have lived in over 40 years of working and living in various tropical countries.
Can we just be clear about what is going on here, and in a dozen other countries? The Chinese are not engaged in these infrastructure projects out of altruism. Chinese state-backed constructions companies 'encourage' or 'persuade', or 'incentivise' local politicians to sign up for these colossal vanity projects. Chinese companies, suppliers and contractors benefit from the projects. In many cases, Chinese labour is imported to do the work. And at the end, when the country can't pay back the debts incurred, national assets are transferred to Chinese ownership.
This is happening in Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Kenya, Djibouti, Sierra Leone, and other countries right now.
Corrupting and disempowering national politicians, denying local suppliers, contractors and workers jobs, and then seizing control of national assets as pay-back - this is how the Chinese make their balance of payments surplus work to build the belt and road...
Spot on and different tax and different laws? It’s pretty obvious that it will end in tears for the Sri Lankans. It’s also pretty obvious that the only real winners are the select few in the political and business class of China.
So what is (y)our counter-strike? Am just asking! What is the West suppose to do against it? How can it be prevented, that China´s Yili is not becoming the biggest stakeholder in the Pakistan Fauji food & dairy product maker or US-based Stoneyfield while they hold already stakes in other countries dairy makers?
Or that CHINA is owning by now the most important harbours around the globe?
What I am saying is that, apart of the sponsorship to these recent articles in the Graun here about Chinas New Silk Road, it is obvious for more over a decade that the "liberalization of trade" - what started with the USofA after the 2WW - , is now copied by China with success and shifts the balance of power in favor of subsidized Chinese enterprises, clearly and distinctly, with the political loyalty that can arise from economic dependence. And yes, it is creating "loyalty" to a state in which President Xi has recently been given the right to rule practically for life. This state is buying support, so to speak. With success. Did the USofA done anything different in the 20th century?
On the other hand, as we learned in other recent articles about the New Silk Road, the details make some interesting facts: On the New Silk Road, trains take the 10,000km from Chongqing to Belarus often in five-and-a-half days. Instead, average six days takes it to travel only 1,300km (800 miles) from Brest on the Polish-Belarusian border to Duisburg, Germany!?
Rail freight between Chongqing and Duisburg is almost twice as expensive as shipping, but takes 12 days instead of 45. Air freight is at least twice as expensive as rail freight, but takes on average five days only. Clearly it opens up a lot more potential.
Obviously is also, that countries or industries if making themselves too reliant on China, it does provide economic leverage for an authoritarian regime that wants to project its geopolitical power into Western Europe. And it did so already in Africa where China is by now the Power-maker in the background.
So back to my question: how are you going to tackle this if it is ´money itself´, that makes money...and the biggest financial players AND MANY POLITICIANS support those deals as they are taking personal advantage of all this!
We are complaining about a fact that is irreversible; the Jeanne is out of the bottle since a long time, and all of us, being consumers par excellence start to ask questions now a little too late.
All this is a result of unleashing "the silent powers" akin many of the West have asked for since a long-time...and what brought those into ruling promising their clientel a rich and bright and better future. Fact is: we do not have realized that their is no infinite growth without destroying our planet´s eco-systems entirely...financially and ecologically.
The PRC lot offer the perfect package for corrupt politicians- just look at Malaysia where ex-PM Najib was unable to fund debt repayments after allegedly thieving around $10 BILLION, partly to bribe his own politicians and electorate to swing the election (THAT failed!!).
To finance repayments, pipeline and crazy rail projects were signed up, financed at hugely inflated prices by the PRC, and the new government is cancelling what they can, but for example the pipeline project is already 80% drawn down although only 13% is completed- where has the money gone?
China may find South Asia too chaotic to deal with
Chinese colonisation by buying into vanity projects and Sri Lanka will vote with the Chinese in the UN.
There was never any life in Columbo anyway...
That was never my experience.
Just when I thought I'd seen all it had to offer,
there'd be just one more thing...
Your opinion may have carried some weight if you knew how to spell the name correctly.
Obviously he was talking about the TV. detective
The civil war is over.
The government acts as if nothing has ever happened.
The Tamils are still living in fear, besides the thousands
who have fled their country.
And now its all about money, money that comes from a
foreign power which will be the main benificiary, with the
locals kindly being offered low paid jobs because some
millions were spread among the few who have the saying.
How very comfortable!?!?
Whatever you think of China today, and obviously there is plenty to criticise, just compare the staggering long-term global vision of what the Chinese government is doing around the world compared to the infant school kids we have running the UK government currently.
China actually is building a world commercial empire. Theresa May and her bickering band of toddlers would struggle to organise a shopping trip to their local Sainsburys. China, a Communist state, puts practicality before ideology almost every time. The Tories are sacrificing the country in the name of their useless failing Brexit.
But what many people don’t seem to realise is they is price to pay for this ‘vision’ - I grew up in the Caribbean and China has been investing heavily across the region along with Latin America. When China bids for a contract - often you must accept that Chinese labour will be shipped out to the country and that parts are often built to specific Chinese specifications which means you have to source replacements from China ...
Yes, congratulations communist china, well done for being the world's greatest polluter and destroying local communities from Africa to Vietnam to Sri Lanka to Cambodia. Continue to ignore deomcracy, law and steal IP.
Sounds lovely, I think you should join their movement why would you want to live in Britain when you can help build a skyscraper
Theresa May's her bickering band of toddlers think they can create "Singapore-on-Thames"; but they mustn't be allowed to rip up all the "red tape" of regulations on safety & workers rights we have in this country.
They clearly think we should all work 12 hour days, 7 day weeks for peanuts.
It's an environmental disaster as described in the report. The question of how it helps anyone but the wealthy in Colombo really needs to be explained although most people believe it will be another example of shit on the poor. Many Sri Lankans are extremely concerned at the lack of any say that the, admittedly seriously corrupt, government will have in the running of the place.
I go out there once a year for work and love Galle Face Gardens, and even sometimes play cricket with the kids. The building of the island pretty much dominates ones senses when walking by because of the sheer activity and noise.
Talking to locals they are very unsure about it. Some think it may be an opportunity, many are concerned about Chinese money for this and all the other building projects going on in Colombo and others suggest it will be a white elephant. Who knows, just each year I go for a walk It gets bigger and bigger.
Yes, Colombo is already changing out of all recognition. I go once each year or two and lose track of how many new buildings are coming up.
To be honest, for myself it sounds hideous. And I do have to wonder how they are going to cope with the additional traffic this will generate, as the road along galle Face and the other one coming in from Fort were already massively backed up when I was there 20 years ago, so how these same two roads will now carry all this extra traffic defeats me, unless they plan to build some kind of skyway to serve this new development...
They barely cope with the existing traffic, so you are right no idea how the extra near the fort will be handled. For those who have not been to Colombo, travelling on roads is interesting to say the least, and Sri Lanka drivers are far better skilled than I it is amazing how few accidents there are.
Lanka - sold out... The corrupt & fascist govt stuffs it pockets, to no avail -rising seas will wash there PRC debt away.
The South-West is a sad tourist trap, but once you venture beyond Negombo and Matara, that's where the real Lanka begins.
Matara used to be amazing. Also lots of beautiful and unspoilt areas more inland in the south.
Instead of building these glitzy towers and endless shopping malls, why not do something about the city's raw sewage that get pumped into the ocean a couple of miles down from Galle. Who the hell will want to go swimming in this new beach construction??
It's some years since I was last there, but I still remember the virulent green of the lagoon behind the Taj Samudra on Galle Face, and how even the sea often took on this hideous bile colour. Definitely no swimming for me there... Mind you, I was never into swimming on the west coast of Sri Lanka south of Colombo as the sea was always very rough. Now on the east coast at Batticaloa, that was something else again, and also if you went north of Mannar on the west coast, there were some very good beaches with much calmer waters, but the locals were a bit hostile at the time. I went up north from Mannar several times with a flotilla of small boats doing medivacs from the Vanni at a time when the front line was closed, and that was the only way in. Now that was good fun...
Wastewater collection and treatment is always the last thing to be built, as it is not an attractive way to spend $20M or so. I design them round Asia, and it's always more difficult as it is left way too late.
Be very, very careful, Sri Lanka. You are a pawn in the Chinese gameplan for world domination, by converting large parts of the world into their perpetual debt slaves. In a few years, China will be dictating all the policies of Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and would be the de facto rulers of these countries (probably along with some African and south-east Asian countries). The Hambantota port in Sri Lanka and the Gwadar port/CPEC in Pakistan are just the beginning.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-lanka-port.html
The larger problem facing the world right now, is that American foreign policy is currently in chaos, and the US can no longer be counted on as an effective counter-weight to Chinese influence in Asia. Trump seems to have no interest in the happenings in that part of the world.
The US has only itself to blame. Whilst they are looking for Reds under the bed in Russia, the Reds in China are taking over their economy.
It isn't either-or. From the American perspective, both Russia and China are adversaries, and represent a threat. I however agree that China is a far bigger threat than Russia, especially in the context of Asia. Russia doesn't plan to dominate Asia. It's mainly interested in having dominion over Eastern Europe, and weakening American and EU influence in the area (and also in the rest of the world). China is more ambitious, and also has a lot more free cash flow than Russia. In the long run, China is capable of doing more damage than Russia.
Actually, they seem to be doing everything but looking for Reds these days... if anything they wasted the last 20 years on spreading chaos in the Middle East and a largely self-inflicted and pointless 'war on terror' (great for soundbites though) in order to serve the pillars of US foreign policy in our day i.e. (i) the military industry; (ii) the oil industry; and (iii) the Israel industry. Meanwhile China has been quietly building itself and spreading influence and the USSR v 2.0 has installed an agent (perhaps unwitting) in the White House.
So sad...
Jeremy Hunt was in China just a few days ago. I can see China being allowed to do the same in the UK.
Well, with the Westminster government totally neglecting many areas of the country and EU funding about to cease, it would not be surprising to see post-industrial cities reaching out to China for development aid. Otherwise, from where else will they get it?
"Otherwise, from where else will they get it?"
I thought the plan was to sell Duchy Originals and keep the UK's coffers filled with the proceeds?
They're already bidding for H2C aren't they?
The parallel with another city, a port and financial centre perched on the edge of a country but with a different legal system and effectively leased by a foreign power, is quite striking. Perhaps Dubai isn't the model, but one closer to Chinese experience - Hong Kong.
While the Chinese are busy there, could they also setup a train from the airport into the city? Tracks are there. All that is needed would be nice new airport express train. That would help a lot and be nice. And maybe replace some more of the old trains in Sri Lanka.
Will do.
Yours,
China.
It is a nice idea but past trials failed. It needs a new track. Currently, slow trains take up to 2 hours to do the distance (20 miles).
Yes, take a tuktuk to the nearest working railway station, wait there for a delayed train and then spend an hour at snailspeed to Fort railway station. All in all easily 2 hours. Makes more sense to take the bus or a taxi. You might be lucky to make it in one hour.
A more modern railway could do it in 30 mins easily.
1.4 billion ? Yeah that will buy you some lovely artist’s impressions and maybe a few empty construction lots......but not a lot else.
To put it into context the Burj Khalifia alone cost over 1.5 billion USD. Dubai Tower that’s nearing completion is already at over a billion. And the Chinese want an entire city for that? Lol, not with all the indentured workers in Sri Lanka.
thats what I thought when I saw the price tag - they won't get much with that amount surely?
I was thinking that as I read the article. 1.4bn dollars is about £1bn, which is about the same cost as a PFI hospital in East London. They have massively underestimated the costs involved and will run out of money before they've finished putting the sand down, never mind the cost of actually building anything.
There is another story here, maybe the Chinese will load ever increasing amounts of debt onto Sri Lanka to get this and other infrastructure projects finished, and keep it as a vassal state for generations.
That's because Burj and just about everything else in Dubai has been fitted in bling from top to toe. China won't go down the bling route. But agreed, the price tag does seem low.
Sri Lanka urgently needs to improve its road and rail infrastructure and the Chinese are helping to do that. I think the Dubai quarter will be a long time in the making and fall somewhat short of expectations. Like the new high rise hotels, it will provide employment in a country where more jobs are desperately required. But turning Colombo into Singapore will take a new leader and political class that looks unlikely to emerge quickly. Meanwhile, I hope the Galle Face Hotel stays at it is and the increasing numbers of tourists go to the new high rise hotels.
It would be very sad to see the Galle Face hotel overrun by hordes of Chinese tourists, which is a real likelihood here. Admittedly, it is now 20 years since I lived in Sri Lanka, and most of my time then was spent in the LTTE controlled Vanni, but there were periods when I got stuck in Colombo and stayed in the Galle Face, and it was a wonderful place. Long may it carry on being so.
Luckily, not everyone wants to go to the Galle Face and some people prefer places like the Cinnamon Grand and Grand Hyatt!!
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