Tag: Sri Lanka

How Indian, Chinese, and U.S. Corporations Vie for Control of Sri Lankan Ports – Asoka Bandarage part 2/2

ByTalia Baroncelli May 22, 2024June 14, 2024

Due to its prime geographical location in maintaining global value chains and shipping routes, the U.S., via the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), as well as India’s Adani Group and China, are all investing in Sri Lanka’s ports. In part 2, sociologist Asoka Bandarage discusses how many countries and multi-national corporations treat Sri Lanka as testing and dumping grounds, exemplified by reports that the Dali ship, which crashed into the Baltimore Bridge, was carrying hazardous waste to Sri Lanka.

Asia | Economy & Work

IMF & Private Creditors Subject Sri Lanka to Neo-Colonial Debt Bondage – Asoka Bandarage part 1/2

ByTalia Baroncelli May 15, 2024June 13, 2024

The Sri Lankan government turned to the IMF for a near $3 billion bailout to repay loans provided by India and Japan, as well as international sovereign bonds issued by foreign creditors such as BlackRock. Dr. Asoka Bandarage, sociologist and author of Crisis in Sri Lanka and the World, suggests that Prime Minister Rajapaksa’s declaration of bankruptcy in 2022 and the subsequent IMF bailout under Prime Minister Wickremesinghe was not an absolute necessity, but an attempt to shift Sri Lanka further under the umbrella of Western and Indian institutions, and away from Chinese loans.

Asia | Climate Change | Economy & Work

Debt and Climate Crisis in Sri Lanka and the World – Asoka Bandarage

ByTalia Baroncelli August 30, 2023October 24, 2023

Dr. Asoka Bandarage is an adjunct professor at the California Institute for Integral Studies and the author of a new book, Crisis in Sri Lanka and the World. Sri Lanka has had a minuscule carbon footprint, and yet the country is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, coastal erosion, and flooding. She discusses the convergence of existential climate and debt crises in Sri Lanka, the latter resulting from IMF debt restructuring and the lack of a globally coordinated multilateral sovereign debt mechanism that places traditional and private lenders on an equal footing.