Flying into Beijing, Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena seemed to hold the key to an important part of China’s latest dream, the so-called Silk Road plan. China desperately wanted him to lift a suspension order that his government recently clamped on a $1.4-billion port-city project in Colombo, Sri Lanka's largest city.
The project is being financed and constructed by Chinese companies because it would give China access to the Indian Ocean, which is one end of the Silk Road project's route. Sirisena’s new government, installed in January after he defeated incumbent Mahinda Rajapska, suspended work on the project, which the Rajapska administration had negotiated.