Chinese loans leave Sri Lanka with crippling debt burden

In the latest of our reports from Sri Lanka, where a constitutional crisis has pitted two rival politicians in a battle to be PM, one contender leans towards India, the other, China.

This has placed the Indian Ocean island on the front line of the competing foreign policy interests of these two regional superpowers. Chinese companies have completed more than £12 billion worth of infrastructure projects. But billions of pounds in Chinese loans have left Sri Lanka with a crippling debt burden, which has strategic implications.

Our Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Jonathan Miller, reports from the capital, Colombo, on what’s been called Chinese “debt diplomacy.”