BEIJING: Chinese leader Xi Jinping said relations between China and Sri Lanka faced a “historical opportunity” to foster ties, in talks with the island nation’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Wednesday. “China-Sri Lanka relations face a historical opportunity to build on the past and forge ahead,” Xi told Dissanayake during the bilateral meeting in Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV. The two sides should see ties from “a strategic perspective and build a China-Sri Lanka community with a shared future.”

The countries signed 15 cooperation documents, including agreements on economic and technological development and aligning China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ with Sri Lanka’s 2030 digital economy blueprint. “It is necessary to strengthen people-to-people exchanges between the two sides and enhance new ties between the two peoples,” Xi told Dissanayake, according to the Chinese state broadcaster.

“I am willing to work with you, Mr President, to chart a new vision for the development of bilateral relations and promote new and greater achievements in China-Sri Lanka’s friendship and cooperation,” Xi told Dissanayake on Wednesday, speaking at the Great Hall of the People. Welcoming more Chinese investment, Dissanayake told his host: “China has supported important and valuable infrastructure development in Sri Lanka via the Belt and Road Initiative and China has been and remains a key development partner.”

Leftist Dissanayake’s visit to China comes after he was given a red-carpet welcome to India by President Narendra Modi during his first overseas trip as premier in December. Dissanayake came to power in September and consolidated his power after his party won a landslide in snap parliamentary polls in November.

China and India are meanwhile competing for influence in the Indian Ocean region. Sri Lanka sits astride the world’s busiest shipping route, which links the Middle East and East Asia, giving its maritime assets strategic importance. But Sri Lanka defaulted on its foreign borrowings in 2022 during a crisis that caused months of food, fuel and medicine shortages.

China accounted for more than half of Sri Lanka’s bilateral debt at the time of the economic crash. In December 2017, unable to repay a huge Chinese loan, Sri Lanka handed its Hambantota port in the south of the island to a Beijing company on a 99-year lease for $1.12 billion, raising questions about Chinese investments in the country.

Xi told Dissanayake that China would “actively support Sri Lanka in focusing on economic development and promote high-quality cooperation” under Beijing’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. China would also strengthen cooperation with Sri Lanka to “jointly address climate change... uphold the unity and strength of the global South, and contribute to regional peace, stability, development and prosperity”, Xi said. — Agencies