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What the World’s Emptiest International Airport Says About China’s Influence

228 points by dmmalam 9y ago

jpatokal 9y ago
One thing worth noting is that, with a theoretical max capacity on only 1 million, this airport would actually be pretty tiny by world standards. (The largest do >100m, and even Colombo Airport pulls in nearly 10m.) By comparison, another famous white elephant airport, Ciudad Real in Spain, was built for 10m and currently serves precisely zero. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Real_Central_Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Real_Central_Airport
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- puranjay 9y ago
  I was in Sri Lanka in summer this year. Outside of international tourist arrivals (all at Colombo, which itself is a tiny airport), there is practically zero internal air travel. The country is so tiny that you can go across the breadth of the country (Colombo to Trincomalee) in 4-5 hours by bus. Or you can take a helicopter/private plane (which are pretty cheap) and do the same distance in like 45 minutes. I can't even imagine any situation where an airport serving a million people outside of Colombo would even be remotely feasible.
  - jpatokal 9y ago
    Easy: Direct international flights, particularly for tourism. For example, in Thailand, the airports of Phuket and Krabi are only ~2 hours apart by car, yet cater to 15m and 5m pax/year respectively. Now I'm sure it made no sense to build the airport at Sri Lanka's current stage of development, but as the country gets richer, it's almost certainly going to become useful sooner or later.
airbookie2 9y ago
It says nothing about China's influence. It just means China likes to throw good money after the bad. Just look at the loans it made to Cambodia, Nigeria, Iran, etc http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/21P46wlPXj00K8VUKMu9oN/Chinas-debttrap-diplomacy.html http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/21P46wlPXj00K8VUKMu9oN/China...
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Part of that is waste, but surely a lot is corruption, and people dumping money offshore any way they can? It's all the same to the Chinese economy, but the motives are distinct.
- nl 9y ago
  It's not good money after bad if China isn't in it for making a monetary profit.
  - adventured 9y ago
    Sure it is. If you keep subsidizing a nation perpetually in a money-losing approach to buying favor like that, your favor loses value as they take your largesse for granted (guaranteed to happen across all of human nature), yet you keep bleeding large sums of capital forever for no further gain. Buying favor that way for China will cost trillions of dollars over time and gain them little. China will realize that if they don't already and will switch to the US system of military partnerships and distribution (it's cheaper, it builds up your nation's global military capabilities, you turn around and sell military hardware to the nations you're dealing with, and your partners become over-dependent on you for their security which completes the lock-in). You can already see some early efforts in that direction from China. Going forward, most of their foreign capital adventurism will likely redirect back toward practical investments, eg in natural resources.
    - nl 9y ago
      This is true, but it's worth noting the US also loans money for arms sales. China has strong and influential alliances all over Africa and the Pacific, partly because of their aid and loans program. There's a reason they sell the Asian Development Bank as an alternative to the US dominated World Bank. It's also instructive how quickly close US allies (including the UK and Australia) expressed interest in working with China on it.
pravinva 9y ago
The slippery slope towards empire for the east India company didn't start by protecting dams and dredging or performing economic activities. It began by superior ammunition and military services that they provided to the various kings and nawabs who were warring with each other.taking sides, and extracting political power in return. Equity ownership means nothing if it's a business that has zero market value. Political power OTOH is what leverage is all about. Arm's exporters have more leverage than ownership in useless ports or airports.
- rrggrr 9y ago
  All influence is economic. Weapons and ammunition and soldiers cost money. China`s influence in the underdeveloped world over strategic raw materials should be of great concern to developed world strategic planners. Rare earth metals are a commonly cited example.
  - pravinva 9y ago
    Not at all.a few years ago, the Chinese monopoly over so called rare earths threatened to increase prices of all electronics. But it took barely 2 years for new mines to be opened outside China profitably and the monopoly was broken. Ammunition is very rarely a market demand. It's dealt by govt bureaucracy and shady arms brokers. I.e nothing to do with economic activity. War is always a political act.
- icegreentea2 9y ago
  Chinese equity stake in the airport and port will likely result in significant Chinese operation of those ports. And surely, that's got to have India thinking a little bit - it means that the PLAAF/PLAN now have a potential forward operating base literally in their backyard. And if China can continue to assert leverage on Sri Lanka, then they might even be able to forward base onto Sri Lanka itself without official argument from Sri Lanka. I mean, I doubt it, but it seems like a viable play.
  - puranjay 9y ago
    How do you see China countering India's cultural hegemony in the region? Much of the culture in the Indian sub-continent is borrowed from Indian culture. Shouldn't this be some insulation from Chinese influence?
exogeny 9y ago
Author has clearly never been to Pittsburgh's airport.
- azeotropic 9y ago
  PIT was the hub for US Air (originally Allegheny Airlines) back when that airport was built. It's pretty vacant now that USAir changed its name, moved the hub to PHI and merged with American, but PIT used to be quite busy.
themgt 9y ago
As the United States beats a haphazard retreat from the world — nixing trade agreements, eschewing diplomacy, antagonizing allies — China marches on with its unabashedly ambitious global-expansion program known as One Belt, One Road. This constant MSM need to connect everything on earth back to Trump is getting so fucking tedious. Construction of the airport this article concerns was finished (edit: begun) in 2009. It's almost as if China has been executing a long-term plan to build a web of neocolonial economic interests around the world for a pittance of the money the USA spent wrecking the Middle East & Afghanistan and killing hundreds of thousands of random people over the last 16 years; except framing the story that way wouldn't reaffirm NYT readers existing biases.
- hyperbovine 9y ago
  Nothing in your post contradicts the thesis of that sentence.
  - tradersam 9y ago
    Yeah, it sounds like someone's just touchy about Trump.
- lovich 9y ago
  The description of America's retreat from the world has been happening for the last few administration's so I don't know if they are referencing Trump directly. The US liked to throw it's weight around and act like an asshole at times and China is now trying to provide another option to get nation's on their side
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Eschewing diplomacy and antagonizing allies started with Bush after 9/11 and the build up for the Iraq war.
  - api 9y ago
    Bush II is still easily the worst president of the last 100 years, at least. Trump has yet to come close to the Iraq disaster, though he has at least 3 more years so who knows. Obama wasn't bad but his problem was that he governed as if the country were not in decline. He was a prosperous times president when we needed a turnaround artist.
tuna-piano 9y ago
I assume another close contender is the Nay Pyi Taw airport in Myanmar. https://www.instagram.com/p/BXvqis0htxH/?taken-at=277450644 https://www.instagram.com/p/BXvqis0htxH/?taken-at=277450644 https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/277450644/naypyidaw-airport/ https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/277450644/naypyi... The city was built as a showcase capital for Myanmar's military government, and has crazy sights like a 20 lane highway (with almost no cars): https://www.go-myanmar.com/sites/go-myanmar.com/files/uploads/npt1.jpg https://www.go-myanmar.com/sites/go-myanmar.com/files/upload... More pictures: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3043503/Inside-Myanmar-s-haunting-capital-city.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-304350... The craziest part of the city to me was the amusement park. It was open, but only half complete. Ride operators would follow us around to turn on the rides we wanted to ride. One of the rides didn't have the female side of the seat belt buckle, so I just had to tie the straps together. Very sad how much money was spent on this city, especially considering how poor the country is.
- ars 9y ago
  > the female side of the seat belt buckle The what? Are rides segregated or is there some kind of female buckle I have not heard of?
  - allenz 9y ago
    The phrase refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_connectors_and_fasteners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_connectors_and_faste...
    - ars 9y ago
      Thanks. I've heard of pipes being referred to that way, but not buckles.
  - allannienhuis 9y ago
    most buckles have a male and female part. It's a common term to describe parts of things that fit into each other. Used in plumbing, electrical and many other industries.
princeb 9y ago
A number of Chinese businesses are setting up 100%-Chinese factory compounds overseas. These compounds are located in a foreign country, but they are fully financed by Chinese, built by Chinese, employ only Chinese, have accommodation for the Chinese employees, have a completely sustaining internal economy where employees can buy food and entertainment and send mail, posts, banking, remittance, insurance, through Chinese companies etc. so that the Chinese never leave the compound and no-one else ever enters. The reason for these factory-compounds is because China has challenging export quotas to places like the US and EU. But concentration of manufacturing know-how remains in China. The only way for these businesses to keep selling to high-value markets is to move manufacturing to another country where there is available quota. Although the goods are 100% made by Chinese, they are 0% made in China. The Chinese government encourages business in this area because it is good employment for the Chinese. In turn, these businesses need better infrastructure in the countries they operate in. The infrastructural investment in these other countries is a wonderful side-effect that the government is happily playing up as part of its diplomatic strategy. When the textiles and the shoes and the fabrication factories are no longer making money, hopefully the ports, the trains, the roads, the power grid will continue generating interest income for the Chinese banks. And the recipient countries of these gifts, as it were, may extract benefit from this arrangement, eventually.
- hyperdunc 9y ago
  China does a similar thing with agriculture. Huge plots of land in Australia and New Zealand are controlled by Chinese farming companies and staffed by Chinese. All the food they produce goes back to China.
  - robbiep 9y ago
    It is not true that they mainly (or even significantly) employ chinese on Australian Farms - these farms are generally managed by the previous owners or managers and staffed by Australians, with australian Agronomists. In actual fact, very little changes on a day to day basis, except there is more funds available for infrastructure and capital goods purchase (and property values are driven up). Which, when you think about it, makes the best managerial sense - What the hell is a chinese person going to do coming to australia and farming - they don't know the conditions, they don't know the land - that's a quick way to destroy all the value they hope to create. Local know-how is essential in agriculture. + they wouldn't be able to get enough on 457's to come in and run it even if they wanted to import all their workers. Source: Australian, from a farm, neighbouring farms have been purchased by chinese buyers
virtuabhi 9y ago
"Over all, around 90 percent of the country’s revenues goes to servicing debt. Even a new president who took office in 2015 on a promise to curb Chinese influence succumbed to financial reality." 90% of Sri Lanka's revenues goes to servicing Chinese debt? I find this hard to believe. Any references?
- crishoj 9y ago
  The quote doesn’t imply that all the debt is Chinese.
- pravinva 9y ago
  It's a problem only if it's denominated in foreign currency.likely
- rgbrenner 9y ago
  not to china.. total: http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/01/24/sri-lankan-governments-90-revenue-goes-debt-repayment/ http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/01/24/sri-lankan-governmen... https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/09/30/sri-lankas-debt-crisis-is-so-bad-the-government-doesnt-even-know-how-much-money-it-owes/#4371aa064608 https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/09/30/sri-lank... http://newsfirst.lk/english/2016/07/failed-large-scale-projects-sink-nation-debt/143319 http://newsfirst.lk/english/2016/07/failed-large-scale-proje...
Dravidian 9y ago
China's investment in Pakistan, Srilanka, Myanmar is clearly aimed to impose strategic advantage over India. Especially in Srilanka, apart from economic activities; they funded & trained Srilankan army to conduct one of the worst genocide on their ethnic tamil population in 4th elam war. Sadly neither the international community nor the Indian government did nothing to prevent it from happening on the contrary they even helped the then Srilankan government with their war along with China in a rare display of cooperation for worst crimes against humanity.
- selimthegrim 9y ago
  Indian government is probably still mad abut IPKF and Rajiv Gandhi
  - Dravidian 9y ago
    The then govt run by widow of Rajiv probably yes.
forkLding 9y ago
Reading the article, I think what I realize is that us readers how no real sway over either side. If Sri Lanka didnt want an airport, they didnt have to get it and China didnt need to provide an airport. Before there was real customers coming in, this was likely just a very good deal or a new product launch with no demand, I think the writer is oversimplifying the situation a bit. There are more reasons than maybe economic neocolonialism.
nl 9y ago
Pushing countries deeper into debt, even inadvertently, may give China leverage in the short run, but it risks losing the good will essential to OBOR’s long-term success. For all the big projects China is engaged in around the world — high-speed rail in Laos, a military base in Djibouti, highways in Kenya — arguably its most perilous step so far may be taking control of the foundering Hambantota port. This is a good point to make, but sadly one that isn't being made by the US atm. It's pretty clear what's going to happen with this airport: To relieve its debt crisis, Sri Lanka has put its white elephants up for sale. In late July, the government agreed to give China control of the deepwater port — a 70 percent equity stake over 99 years — in exchange for writing off $1.1 billion of the island’s debt Just imagine what China will give for an Indian-ocean airbase in Sri Lanka to go with the base they have in Djibouti[1]. Sri Lanka will keep trying to play China, India and the US off against each other[2], but it's pretty clear to everyone that the "string of pearls" strategy is working well for China at the moment. [1] https://warontherocks.com/2017/08/chinas-military-base-in-djibouti-strategic-implications-for-india/ https://warontherocks.com/2017/08/chinas-military-base-in-dj... [2] https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/sri-lanka-is-not-chinas-pearl-in-the-indian-ocean/ https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/sri-lanka-is-not-chinas-pe...
- navinsylvester 9y ago
  Srilanka is stone throw away from India. I don't think Srilanka will ever allow a military base for China and antagonize India. When Chinese submarines were allowed to dock twice in Srilankan port that was the last straw. Indian secret service RAW allegedly played an important role in toppling the oppressive, corrupt and Chinese leaning Rajapakse government[1]. I guess that is one serious warning to ignore. [1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/21/sril-j21.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/21/sril-j21.html
  - nl 9y ago
    Indeed, India is very concerned. I believe the current port leasing conditions say it isn't to be used as a military base. But things change. China spends a lot of money and it isn't clear how this will play out. Five years ago people thought it was impossible they would control the South China Sea. Now the it's close to the de-facto position, and the US only conducts an occasional freedom of navigation operation to pretend otherwise.
1_2__4 9y ago
I'm surprised nobody's brought up the US real estate market parallels. Arguably China is already in a position to exert significant influence over multiple markets in the US with nothing more than threats - real or implied - of enacting currency controls. Entire markets - if not the entire RE market in the US - would collapse overnight if China decided to prohibit the free flow of money into US properties.
- rajup 9y ago
  They already do so.
- chibg10 9y ago
  Arguably the main focus Chinese economic policy over the past year or so has been to close loopholes in the existing (strict) controls to prevent capital from leaving the country. The RE markets aren't collapsing.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- adventured 9y ago
  > if not the entire RE market in the US - would collapse overnight if China decided to prohibit the free flow of money into US properties. That's a comical extreme exaggeration. China has a minuscule share of and influence on the US real-estate market overall, including all of its metros. They have a several hundred billion dollar position in a hundred trillion dollar total market. They've only begun to have big influence in one city - Seattle (Amazon by itself has several times the real-estate influence that China does on Seattle). Much like Vancouver's real-estate market didn't collapse once the Chinese money stopped flowing in so easily, nor would Seattle's market. Further, most of China's real-estate influence is on a small segment of the higher end part of the market, from the capital flight of wealthier Chinese. All of that Chinese capital flight has already slowed dramatically due to capital controls. And yet, US real-estate isn't having a problem at all (quite the opposite). Japan had a dramatically greater position in US real-estate in the late 1980s. Guess what didn't happen when Japan started pulling its capital out of US real-estate? You guessed it, US real-estate didn't collapse at all. In fact, it did just fine from 1992 to 2000. The huge problems Japan's economy had, resulted in a small twitch in the US real-estate market, which is exactly what would happen with China.
throwaway178614 9y ago
It's very striking, how China's endeavors mimic those from the US's past and ongoing geopolitical stratagems. US's game so far has been to sell overpriced white elephants to countries in the Middle East, East Asia and South America. This has benefited in the process, a few "bent" middle men, resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from the US Fed to a few select infrastructure/defense firms in the US, all while indebting generations of impoverished people to the whims of the American retainers in WTO/IMF etc. Inevitably, these countries become the hubs for slave labor under US based corporations, which reap massive profits while paying pennies on the dollar. ... and they say slavery is dead. It's a pity that China appears determined to follow a similar policy. I find it amusing that the article almost seems to gloat "China is following the Great Britain model. These outdated chinks have no idea how to run an empire in the modern era!". The world is a very depressing place. Welcome to the Borg.
mamon 9y ago
This reminds me of an airport in Radom (Poland). It was built few years ago, because it was an opportunity to get some money from EU (and for local politicians to get some bribes :) ). For the first two years airport was unused - the only airline that signet contract got bankrupt. Currently it has another airline operating and serves 10k passengers per year. That's what happens when EU starts giving away money.
- tempay 9y ago
  > That's what happens when EU starts giving away money. I'm unconvinced how bad this actually is. An organisation with a ~150 billion euro budget in going to inevitably have some abuse/waste of it's resources but equally I can think of dozens of projects that have positive outcomes. Sure, it's still not okay for the ones like the airport to exist but I think focusing on them undermines the good that can be done by having a source of cash that can be used to improve the world.
  - Boothroid 9y ago
    I guess you would similarly dismiss the corruption etc that has led to auditors refusing to sign off on EU accounts for years? And as if the EU has morality at its core.. I don't see much of that when it comes to EU policies that impoverish farmers in developing countries.
    - tempay 9y ago
      > you would similarly dismiss the corruption etc that has led to auditors refusing to sign off on EU accounts for years? So far as I can tell this is incorrect[1]. [1] https://infacts.org/mythbusts/auditors-havent-refused-sign-off-eu-accounts/ https://infacts.org/mythbusts/auditors-havent-refused-sign-o...
- danmaz74 9y ago
  A very big difference is that EU convergence funds aren't debt you need to repay later - while those Chinese investments are. Those countries are getting into deep debt, sometimes to build things they don't need.
addHocker 9y ago
Imagine a fully centralized country like china ruled by someone impulsive. Centralization always relies on a well meaning, benefactorial power center- if that goes sour- and it always does, there is no plan for deprecation or recovery. PS: How can land investment in africa make sense? They are often not enforceable and do not outlast populist government turnover?
forapurpose 9y ago
> China promotes itself as a new, gentler kind of power, but it’s worth remembering that dredging deepwater ports and laying down railroad ties to secure new trade routes — and then having to defend them from angry locals — was precisely how Britain started down the slippery slope to empire. China should be deterred by the prospect of following the footsteps of the most powerful empire in history?
- puranjay 9y ago
  To add: an empire they also hated for what it did to China. One of my oldest friends went to China to study medicine. He's now a doctor in Shanghai. I visited him a while back and spent a lot of time with his Chinese colleagues. The overwhelming sense I got was that China believes it is their destiny to be the supreme power in the world, that western dominance is an aberration of history, and that it is China's right to that status.
  - ionised 9y ago
    How original of them.
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      I agree with what you seem to imply: The attitudes of nationalism - and the evils it leads to - are well known, but hardly talked about these days. How could we have forgotten?
      - puranjay 9y ago
        Poverty and humiliation are powerful catalysts. If you want to place blame, place it on the bankers who tanked the economy in 2008. We've never really recovered. When you attack people's livelihoods, they get desperate. And in desperation, they choose despots who promise them their livelihoods, and more.
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tryingagainbro 9y ago
Maybe i missed it in the article, but Sri Lanka shouldn't complain: it was China that enabled them to crush their separatist movement http://thediplomat.com/2016/11/china-and-sri-lanka-between-a-dream-and-a-nightmare/ http://thediplomat.com/2016/11/china-and-sri-lanka-between-a... (right or wrong, Sri Lanka's best interest was to end the war and stay one country) . It was China that helped them militarily and politically at the UN. That does have a cost...
scandox 9y ago
Found this quote from Ai Weiwei in yesterday's Guardian very interesting: “Can China be a global power? I don’t think so. It can gain an advantage, that’s true. But it doesn’t have soul. It doesn’t have heart. It doesn’t trust its own people. So it has no self-identity in the sense that it has never accepted human rights as common values. No freedom of speech, no independent judicial system. If those don’t exist, how can you have creativity? How can you be a country? So forget about China. China is an illusion. It’s there, it’s large. But nobody can tell you what it is.” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/17/ai-weiwei-without-the-prison-the-beatings-what-would-i-be https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/17/ai-weiwei-witho...
- fatman13gg 9y ago
  Why having freedom of speech, independent judicial system and accepting human rights as common values has to be the prerequisites of being a global power? Technically if you are rich and powerful then you are a global power. Edit: sensing lots of incoming downvotes. Point is that democracy may not be the only way to global power.
  - grecy 9y ago
    I'm not sure why you are being downvoted, you are absolutely correct. I would argue that many of the world's billionaires are not particularly nice people, but that doesn't stop them being immensely rich and powerful. I see no reason the same can't be true for a country. If it has an immense amount of wealth, it will be powerful, irrelevant of human rights, etc.
    - scandox 9y ago
      Political power is not something you can bank. It cannot be stored. It cannot be measured statically at a particular moment in time. It is rooted in networks of people and in ideas. Very rich people can exercise political power only by proxy in our culture: by effectively buying it from people who have the real thing. This is both expensive and limited. It can evaporate in a moment.
teh_klev 9y ago
Discussion about Mattala Rajapaksa International from a year or so ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11797585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11797585 https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/28/the-story-behind-the-worlds-emptiest-international-airport-sri-lankas-mattala-rajapaksa/#76d51cb17cea https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/28/the-stor... The Forbes article has a few photos of the airport inline.
turingbook 9y ago
The Chinese version: https://cn.nytimes.com/asia-pacific/20170914/what-the-worlds-emptiest-international-airport-says-about-chinas-influence/zh-hant/ https://cn.nytimes.com/asia-pacific/20170914/what-the-worlds...
koolio 9y ago
There is absolutely nothing that can stop China from dominating this century and it is glorious.
chiefalchemist 9y ago
Was it China that encouraged and financed Greece's excessive debt? This article is interesting, but comes up short on completeness (i.e., lack of bias).
cheshireoctopus 9y ago
Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit...

228 points by dmmalam 9y ago

One thing worth noting is that, with a theoretical max capacity on only 1 million, this airport would actually be pretty tiny by world standards. (The largest do >100m, and even Colombo Airport pulls in nearly 10m.) By comparison, another famous white elephant airport, Ciudad Real in Spain, was built for 10m and currently serves precisely zero. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Real_Central_Airport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Real_Central_Airport

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
puranjay 9y ago
I was in Sri Lanka in summer this year. Outside of international tourist arrivals (all at Colombo, which itself is a tiny airport), there is practically zero internal air travel. The country is so tiny that you can go across the breadth of the country (Colombo to Trincomalee) in 4-5 hours by bus. Or you can take a helicopter/private plane (which are pretty cheap) and do the same distance in like 45 minutes. I can't even imagine any situation where an airport serving a million people outside of Colombo would even be remotely feasible.
- jpatokal 9y ago
  Easy: Direct international flights, particularly for tourism. For example, in Thailand, the airports of Phuket and Krabi are only ~2 hours apart by car, yet cater to 15m and 5m pax/year respectively. Now I'm sure it made no sense to build the airport at Sri Lanka's current stage of development, but as the country gets richer, it's almost certainly going to become useful sooner or later.

airbookie2 9y ago

It says nothing about China's influence. It just means China likes to throw good money after the bad. Just look at the loans it made to Cambodia, Nigeria, Iran, etc http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/21P46wlPXj00K8VUKMu9oN/Chinas-debttrap-diplomacy.html http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/21P46wlPXj00K8VUKMu9oN/China...

QAPereo 9y ago
Part of that is waste, but surely a lot is corruption, and people dumping money offshore any way they can? It's all the same to the Chinese economy, but the motives are distinct.
nl 9y ago
It's not good money after bad if China isn't in it for making a monetary profit.
- adventured 9y ago
  Sure it is. If you keep subsidizing a nation perpetually in a money-losing approach to buying favor like that, your favor loses value as they take your largesse for granted (guaranteed to happen across all of human nature), yet you keep bleeding large sums of capital forever for no further gain. Buying favor that way for China will cost trillions of dollars over time and gain them little. China will realize that if they don't already and will switch to the US system of military partnerships and distribution (it's cheaper, it builds up your nation's global military capabilities, you turn around and sell military hardware to the nations you're dealing with, and your partners become over-dependent on you for their security which completes the lock-in). You can already see some early efforts in that direction from China. Going forward, most of their foreign capital adventurism will likely redirect back toward practical investments, eg in natural resources.
  - nl 9y ago
    This is true, but it's worth noting the US also loans money for arms sales. China has strong and influential alliances all over Africa and the Pacific, partly because of their aid and loans program. There's a reason they sell the Asian Development Bank as an alternative to the US dominated World Bank. It's also instructive how quickly close US allies (including the UK and Australia) expressed interest in working with China on it.

pravinva 9y ago

The slippery slope towards empire for the east India company didn't start by protecting dams and dredging or performing economic activities. It began by superior ammunition and military services that they provided to the various kings and nawabs who were warring with each other.taking sides, and extracting political power in return. Equity ownership means nothing if it's a business that has zero market value. Political power OTOH is what leverage is all about. Arm's exporters have more leverage than ownership in useless ports or airports.

rrggrr 9y ago
All influence is economic. Weapons and ammunition and soldiers cost money. China`s influence in the underdeveloped world over strategic raw materials should be of great concern to developed world strategic planners. Rare earth metals are a commonly cited example.
- pravinva 9y ago
  Not at all.a few years ago, the Chinese monopoly over so called rare earths threatened to increase prices of all electronics. But it took barely 2 years for new mines to be opened outside China profitably and the monopoly was broken. Ammunition is very rarely a market demand. It's dealt by govt bureaucracy and shady arms brokers. I.e nothing to do with economic activity. War is always a political act.
icegreentea2 9y ago
Chinese equity stake in the airport and port will likely result in significant Chinese operation of those ports. And surely, that's got to have India thinking a little bit - it means that the PLAAF/PLAN now have a potential forward operating base literally in their backyard. And if China can continue to assert leverage on Sri Lanka, then they might even be able to forward base onto Sri Lanka itself without official argument from Sri Lanka. I mean, I doubt it, but it seems like a viable play.
- puranjay 9y ago
  How do you see China countering India's cultural hegemony in the region? Much of the culture in the Indian sub-continent is borrowed from Indian culture. Shouldn't this be some insulation from Chinese influence?

exogeny 9y ago

Author has clearly never been to Pittsburgh's airport.

azeotropic 9y ago
PIT was the hub for US Air (originally Allegheny Airlines) back when that airport was built. It's pretty vacant now that USAir changed its name, moved the hub to PHI and merged with American, but PIT used to be quite busy.

themgt 9y ago

As the United States beats a haphazard retreat from the world — nixing trade agreements, eschewing diplomacy, antagonizing allies — China marches on with its unabashedly ambitious global-expansion program known as One Belt, One Road. This constant MSM need to connect everything on earth back to Trump is getting so fucking tedious. Construction of the airport this article concerns was finished (edit: begun) in 2009. It's almost as if China has been executing a long-term plan to build a web of neocolonial economic interests around the world for a pittance of the money the USA spent wrecking the Middle East & Afghanistan and killing hundreds of thousands of random people over the last 16 years; except framing the story that way wouldn't reaffirm NYT readers existing biases.

hyperbovine 9y ago
Nothing in your post contradicts the thesis of that sentence.
- tradersam 9y ago
  Yeah, it sounds like someone's just touchy about Trump.
lovich 9y ago
The description of America's retreat from the world has been happening for the last few administration's so I don't know if they are referencing Trump directly. The US liked to throw it's weight around and act like an asshole at times and China is now trying to provide another option to get nation's on their side
maxxxxx 9y ago
Eschewing diplomacy and antagonizing allies started with Bush after 9/11 and the build up for the Iraq war.
- api 9y ago
  Bush II is still easily the worst president of the last 100 years, at least. Trump has yet to come close to the Iraq disaster, though he has at least 3 more years so who knows. Obama wasn't bad but his problem was that he governed as if the country were not in decline. He was a prosperous times president when we needed a turnaround artist.

tuna-piano 9y ago

I assume another close contender is the Nay Pyi Taw airport in Myanmar. https://www.instagram.com/p/BXvqis0htxH/?taken-at=277450644 https://www.instagram.com/p/BXvqis0htxH/?taken-at=277450644 https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/277450644/naypyidaw-airport/ https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/277450644/naypyi... The city was built as a showcase capital for Myanmar's military government, and has crazy sights like a 20 lane highway (with almost no cars): https://www.go-myanmar.com/sites/go-myanmar.com/files/uploads/npt1.jpg https://www.go-myanmar.com/sites/go-myanmar.com/files/upload... More pictures: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3043503/Inside-Myanmar-s-haunting-capital-city.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-304350... The craziest part of the city to me was the amusement park. It was open, but only half complete. Ride operators would follow us around to turn on the rides we wanted to ride. One of the rides didn't have the female side of the seat belt buckle, so I just had to tie the straps together. Very sad how much money was spent on this city, especially considering how poor the country is.

ars 9y ago
> the female side of the seat belt buckle The what? Are rides segregated or is there some kind of female buckle I have not heard of?
- allenz 9y ago
  The phrase refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_connectors_and_fasteners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_of_connectors_and_faste...
  - ars 9y ago
    Thanks. I've heard of pipes being referred to that way, but not buckles.
- allannienhuis 9y ago
  most buckles have a male and female part. It's a common term to describe parts of things that fit into each other. Used in plumbing, electrical and many other industries.

princeb 9y ago

A number of Chinese businesses are setting up 100%-Chinese factory compounds overseas. These compounds are located in a foreign country, but they are fully financed by Chinese, built by Chinese, employ only Chinese, have accommodation for the Chinese employees, have a completely sustaining internal economy where employees can buy food and entertainment and send mail, posts, banking, remittance, insurance, through Chinese companies etc. so that the Chinese never leave the compound and no-one else ever enters. The reason for these factory-compounds is because China has challenging export quotas to places like the US and EU. But concentration of manufacturing know-how remains in China. The only way for these businesses to keep selling to high-value markets is to move manufacturing to another country where there is available quota. Although the goods are 100% made by Chinese, they are 0% made in China. The Chinese government encourages business in this area because it is good employment for the Chinese. In turn, these businesses need better infrastructure in the countries they operate in. The infrastructural investment in these other countries is a wonderful side-effect that the government is happily playing up as part of its diplomatic strategy. When the textiles and the shoes and the fabrication factories are no longer making money, hopefully the ports, the trains, the roads, the power grid will continue generating interest income for the Chinese banks. And the recipient countries of these gifts, as it were, may extract benefit from this arrangement, eventually.

hyperdunc 9y ago
China does a similar thing with agriculture. Huge plots of land in Australia and New Zealand are controlled by Chinese farming companies and staffed by Chinese. All the food they produce goes back to China.
- robbiep 9y ago
  It is not true that they mainly (or even significantly) employ chinese on Australian Farms - these farms are generally managed by the previous owners or managers and staffed by Australians, with australian Agronomists. In actual fact, very little changes on a day to day basis, except there is more funds available for infrastructure and capital goods purchase (and property values are driven up). Which, when you think about it, makes the best managerial sense - What the hell is a chinese person going to do coming to australia and farming - they don't know the conditions, they don't know the land - that's a quick way to destroy all the value they hope to create. Local know-how is essential in agriculture. + they wouldn't be able to get enough on 457's to come in and run it even if they wanted to import all their workers. Source: Australian, from a farm, neighbouring farms have been purchased by chinese buyers

virtuabhi 9y ago

"Over all, around 90 percent of the country’s revenues goes to servicing debt. Even a new president who took office in 2015 on a promise to curb Chinese influence succumbed to financial reality." 90% of Sri Lanka's revenues goes to servicing Chinese debt? I find this hard to believe. Any references?

crishoj 9y ago
The quote doesn’t imply that all the debt is Chinese.
pravinva 9y ago
It's a problem only if it's denominated in foreign currency.likely
rgbrenner 9y ago
not to china.. total: http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/01/24/sri-lankan-governments-90-revenue-goes-debt-repayment/ http://southasianmonitor.com/2017/01/24/sri-lankan-governmen... https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/09/30/sri-lankas-debt-crisis-is-so-bad-the-government-doesnt-even-know-how-much-money-it-owes/#4371aa064608 https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/09/30/sri-lank... http://newsfirst.lk/english/2016/07/failed-large-scale-projects-sink-nation-debt/143319 http://newsfirst.lk/english/2016/07/failed-large-scale-proje...

Dravidian 9y ago

China's investment in Pakistan, Srilanka, Myanmar is clearly aimed to impose strategic advantage over India. Especially in Srilanka, apart from economic activities; they funded & trained Srilankan army to conduct one of the worst genocide on their ethnic tamil population in 4th elam war. Sadly neither the international community nor the Indian government did nothing to prevent it from happening on the contrary they even helped the then Srilankan government with their war along with China in a rare display of cooperation for worst crimes against humanity.

selimthegrim 9y ago
Indian government is probably still mad abut IPKF and Rajiv Gandhi
- Dravidian 9y ago
  The then govt run by widow of Rajiv probably yes.

forkLding 9y ago

Reading the article, I think what I realize is that us readers how no real sway over either side. If Sri Lanka didnt want an airport, they didnt have to get it and China didnt need to provide an airport. Before there was real customers coming in, this was likely just a very good deal or a new product launch with no demand, I think the writer is oversimplifying the situation a bit. There are more reasons than maybe economic neocolonialism.

nl 9y ago

Pushing countries deeper into debt, even inadvertently, may give China leverage in the short run, but it risks losing the good will essential to OBOR’s long-term success. For all the big projects China is engaged in around the world — high-speed rail in Laos, a military base in Djibouti, highways in Kenya — arguably its most perilous step so far may be taking control of the foundering Hambantota port. This is a good point to make, but sadly one that isn't being made by the US atm. It's pretty clear what's going to happen with this airport: To relieve its debt crisis, Sri Lanka has put its white elephants up for sale. In late July, the government agreed to give China control of the deepwater port — a 70 percent equity stake over 99 years — in exchange for writing off $1.1 billion of the island’s debt Just imagine what China will give for an Indian-ocean airbase in Sri Lanka to go with the base they have in Djibouti[1]. Sri Lanka will keep trying to play China, India and the US off against each other[2], but it's pretty clear to everyone that the "string of pearls" strategy is working well for China at the moment. [1] https://warontherocks.com/2017/08/chinas-military-base-in-djibouti-strategic-implications-for-india/ https://warontherocks.com/2017/08/chinas-military-base-in-dj... [2] https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/sri-lanka-is-not-chinas-pearl-in-the-indian-ocean/ https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/sri-lanka-is-not-chinas-pe...

navinsylvester 9y ago
Srilanka is stone throw away from India. I don't think Srilanka will ever allow a military base for China and antagonize India. When Chinese submarines were allowed to dock twice in Srilankan port that was the last straw. Indian secret service RAW allegedly played an important role in toppling the oppressive, corrupt and Chinese leaning Rajapakse government[1]. I guess that is one serious warning to ignore. [1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/21/sril-j21.html https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/01/21/sril-j21.html
- nl 9y ago
  Indeed, India is very concerned. I believe the current port leasing conditions say it isn't to be used as a military base. But things change. China spends a lot of money and it isn't clear how this will play out. Five years ago people thought it was impossible they would control the South China Sea. Now the it's close to the de-facto position, and the US only conducts an occasional freedom of navigation operation to pretend otherwise.

1_2__4 9y ago

I'm surprised nobody's brought up the US real estate market parallels. Arguably China is already in a position to exert significant influence over multiple markets in the US with nothing more than threats - real or implied - of enacting currency controls. Entire markets - if not the entire RE market in the US - would collapse overnight if China decided to prohibit the free flow of money into US properties.

rajup 9y ago
They already do so.
chibg10 9y ago
Arguably the main focus Chinese economic policy over the past year or so has been to close loopholes in the existing (strict) controls to prevent capital from leaving the country. The RE markets aren't collapsing.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
adventured 9y ago
> if not the entire RE market in the US - would collapse overnight if China decided to prohibit the free flow of money into US properties. That's a comical extreme exaggeration. China has a minuscule share of and influence on the US real-estate market overall, including all of its metros. They have a several hundred billion dollar position in a hundred trillion dollar total market. They've only begun to have big influence in one city - Seattle (Amazon by itself has several times the real-estate influence that China does on Seattle). Much like Vancouver's real-estate market didn't collapse once the Chinese money stopped flowing in so easily, nor would Seattle's market. Further, most of China's real-estate influence is on a small segment of the higher end part of the market, from the capital flight of wealthier Chinese. All of that Chinese capital flight has already slowed dramatically due to capital controls. And yet, US real-estate isn't having a problem at all (quite the opposite). Japan had a dramatically greater position in US real-estate in the late 1980s. Guess what didn't happen when Japan started pulling its capital out of US real-estate? You guessed it, US real-estate didn't collapse at all. In fact, it did just fine from 1992 to 2000. The huge problems Japan's economy had, resulted in a small twitch in the US real-estate market, which is exactly what would happen with China.

throwaway178614 9y ago

It's very striking, how China's endeavors mimic those from the US's past and ongoing geopolitical stratagems. US's game so far has been to sell overpriced white elephants to countries in the Middle East, East Asia and South America. This has benefited in the process, a few "bent" middle men, resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from the US Fed to a few select infrastructure/defense firms in the US, all while indebting generations of impoverished people to the whims of the American retainers in WTO/IMF etc. Inevitably, these countries become the hubs for slave labor under US based corporations, which reap massive profits while paying pennies on the dollar. ... and they say slavery is dead. It's a pity that China appears determined to follow a similar policy. I find it amusing that the article almost seems to gloat "China is following the Great Britain model. These outdated chinks have no idea how to run an empire in the modern era!". The world is a very depressing place. Welcome to the Borg.

mamon 9y ago

This reminds me of an airport in Radom (Poland). It was built few years ago, because it was an opportunity to get some money from EU (and for local politicians to get some bribes :) ). For the first two years airport was unused - the only airline that signet contract got bankrupt. Currently it has another airline operating and serves 10k passengers per year. That's what happens when EU starts giving away money.

tempay 9y ago
> That's what happens when EU starts giving away money. I'm unconvinced how bad this actually is. An organisation with a ~150 billion euro budget in going to inevitably have some abuse/waste of it's resources but equally I can think of dozens of projects that have positive outcomes. Sure, it's still not okay for the ones like the airport to exist but I think focusing on them undermines the good that can be done by having a source of cash that can be used to improve the world.
- Boothroid 9y ago
  I guess you would similarly dismiss the corruption etc that has led to auditors refusing to sign off on EU accounts for years? And as if the EU has morality at its core.. I don't see much of that when it comes to EU policies that impoverish farmers in developing countries.
  - tempay 9y ago
    > you would similarly dismiss the corruption etc that has led to auditors refusing to sign off on EU accounts for years? So far as I can tell this is incorrect[1]. [1] https://infacts.org/mythbusts/auditors-havent-refused-sign-off-eu-accounts/ https://infacts.org/mythbusts/auditors-havent-refused-sign-o...
danmaz74 9y ago
A very big difference is that EU convergence funds aren't debt you need to repay later - while those Chinese investments are. Those countries are getting into deep debt, sometimes to build things they don't need.

addHocker 9y ago

Imagine a fully centralized country like china ruled by someone impulsive. Centralization always relies on a well meaning, benefactorial power center- if that goes sour- and it always does, there is no plan for deprecation or recovery. PS: How can land investment in africa make sense? They are often not enforceable and do not outlast populist government turnover?

forapurpose 9y ago

> China promotes itself as a new, gentler kind of power, but it’s worth remembering that dredging deepwater ports and laying down railroad ties to secure new trade routes — and then having to defend them from angry locals — was precisely how Britain started down the slippery slope to empire. China should be deterred by the prospect of following the footsteps of the most powerful empire in history?

puranjay 9y ago
To add: an empire they also hated for what it did to China. One of my oldest friends went to China to study medicine. He's now a doctor in Shanghai. I visited him a while back and spent a lot of time with his Chinese colleagues. The overwhelming sense I got was that China believes it is their destiny to be the supreme power in the world, that western dominance is an aberration of history, and that it is China's right to that status.
- ionised 9y ago
  How original of them.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    I agree with what you seem to imply: The attitudes of nationalism - and the evils it leads to - are well known, but hardly talked about these days. How could we have forgotten?
    - puranjay 9y ago
      Poverty and humiliation are powerful catalysts. If you want to place blame, place it on the bankers who tanked the economy in 2008. We've never really recovered. When you attack people's livelihoods, they get desperate. And in desperation, they choose despots who promise them their livelihoods, and more.

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tryingagainbro 9y ago

Maybe i missed it in the article, but Sri Lanka shouldn't complain: it was China that enabled them to crush their separatist movement http://thediplomat.com/2016/11/china-and-sri-lanka-between-a-dream-and-a-nightmare/ http://thediplomat.com/2016/11/china-and-sri-lanka-between-a... (right or wrong, Sri Lanka's best interest was to end the war and stay one country) . It was China that helped them militarily and politically at the UN. That does have a cost...

scandox 9y ago

Found this quote from Ai Weiwei in yesterday's Guardian very interesting: “Can China be a global power? I don’t think so. It can gain an advantage, that’s true. But it doesn’t have soul. It doesn’t have heart. It doesn’t trust its own people. So it has no self-identity in the sense that it has never accepted human rights as common values. No freedom of speech, no independent judicial system. If those don’t exist, how can you have creativity? How can you be a country? So forget about China. China is an illusion. It’s there, it’s large. But nobody can tell you what it is.” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/17/ai-weiwei-without-the-prison-the-beatings-what-would-i-be https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/17/ai-weiwei-witho...

fatman13gg 9y ago
Why having freedom of speech, independent judicial system and accepting human rights as common values has to be the prerequisites of being a global power? Technically if you are rich and powerful then you are a global power. Edit: sensing lots of incoming downvotes. Point is that democracy may not be the only way to global power.
- grecy 9y ago
  I'm not sure why you are being downvoted, you are absolutely correct. I would argue that many of the world's billionaires are not particularly nice people, but that doesn't stop them being immensely rich and powerful. I see no reason the same can't be true for a country. If it has an immense amount of wealth, it will be powerful, irrelevant of human rights, etc.
  - scandox 9y ago
    Political power is not something you can bank. It cannot be stored. It cannot be measured statically at a particular moment in time. It is rooted in networks of people and in ideas. Very rich people can exercise political power only by proxy in our culture: by effectively buying it from people who have the real thing. This is both expensive and limited. It can evaporate in a moment.

teh_klev 9y ago

Discussion about Mattala Rajapaksa International from a year or so ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11797585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11797585 https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/28/the-story-behind-the-worlds-emptiest-international-airport-sri-lankas-mattala-rajapaksa/#76d51cb17cea https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/28/the-stor... The Forbes article has a few photos of the airport inline.

turingbook 9y ago

The Chinese version: https://cn.nytimes.com/asia-pacific/20170914/what-the-worlds-emptiest-international-airport-says-about-chinas-influence/zh-hant/ https://cn.nytimes.com/asia-pacific/20170914/what-the-worlds...

koolio 9y ago

There is absolutely nothing that can stop China from dominating this century and it is glorious.

chiefalchemist 9y ago

Was it China that encouraged and financed Greece's excessive debt? This article is interesting, but comes up short on completeness (i.e., lack of bias).

cheshireoctopus 9y ago

Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit...