Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe during an interview with  Palki Sharma from WION, added that China is interested in helping Sri Lanka amid the economic crisis and noted that it’s the most challenging appointment he ever had.

When asked by the hosting journalist, at age 73 if he was fit enough to take the office of Prime Minister, Mr. Wickremesinghe answered; “Someone sent me a note and said that China’s revolutionary leader Deng Xiaoping also started at 73. I’m not saying I’m the Deng Xiaoping of Sri Lanka but well age people start at that point. so why not?  he added.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe also acknowledged China’s assistance with giving credit lines but noted that Sri Lanka was unable to use them because the reserves were low. However, under his administration, the two governments have discussed the restructuring of loans. Also, the Prime Minister added that Sri Lanka will have to take up the restructuring of all the loans from both the donors as well as the private investors, and in the case of the donors, Sri Lanka has to ensure that all of them agree to the restructuring plan because only Japan is in the Paris club, China and India out of the Paris club, so Sri Lanka needs to get an agreement among them. with regard to China specifically, Sri Lanka’s high commissioner in Beijing is also discussing with the Chinese government yet there has been no response from China so far,  

Answering a question by the journalist, did China ditch Sri Lanka in its hour of need?  The Sri Lankan Prime mister added that “I won’t say that”, China is interested in helping us he added. Sri Lanka decided to go along with India because India came up with the money quickly and that’s what Sri Lanka wanted, it’s a question of who had less red tape and India had less red tape for the first time, he added.  

When asked about China’s Strategic geopolitical interest in the region, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said that, China didn’t lift its interest in South Asia, specifically in Island nations like Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Seychelles, and said the interest is still there. the Prime Minister added that China has a lot of interest in this whole region. The situation of the Himalayan border is a good example, otherwise, India will not be moving troops around in Ladakh, where the two armies China and India are facing each other, then down here China is working with Pakistan even with Nepal and they have kept their interest in South Asia, he added.  China’s interest is still there in Sri Lanka yet due to the Sri Lankan the crisis, in the last few months China has been silent and under the new government the prime mister is planning to start talking with the Chinese and get them into the donor conference, and China agreed to get into the donor conference with Sri Lanka.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yXoRtT1898