The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.
© Thomson Reuters 2022.Japan seeks to organize Sri Lanka creditors' meeting on debt crisis
By Tetsushi Kajimoto and Takaya Yamaguchi TOKYO©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.
23 Comments
Login to comment
Alfie Noakes
Another strange Reuters article that entirely fails to mention that 81% of Sri Lanka's foreign debt is owned by Western financial institutions, as well as Japan and India. Only 10% is owned by China. The top holders of the debt in the form of international sovereign bonds (ISBs) are:
BlackRock (US)
Ashmore Group (Britain)
Allianz (Germany)
UBS (Switzerland)
HSBC (Britain)
JPMorgan Chase (US)
Prudential (US)
The World Bank and the IMF are two major props of American control of the global financial system.
https://multipolarista.com/2022/07/11/debt-trap-sri-lanka-west-china/
Given the emphasis on China in the article and the failure to mention US/European ownership of the debt, it seems increasingly likely that Reuters are returning to their previous policy of state-affiliated propaganda.
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/20/reuters-bbc-uk-foreign-office-russian-media/
Axel
So are we now acknowledging the lies of the MSM and Western regimes about Sri Lanka being a victim of a "Chinese debt trap"? Given the fact that China isn't even the largest single creditor let alone in comparison with Japan and Western regimes in their entirety.
wallace
The situation in Sri Lanka was created by very bad governance.
The people deserved better.
OnTheTrail
All this over a measley $6.3B? The US prints,,er,,spends that on the cause-de-jour every week. Heck, this week's spend was $500B+ on a flash on the pan. Seems like if the US wanted to buy good will, this would be pennies on the dollar.
virusrex
Thanks for the necessary context, I have seen this argument being used several times recently without this very necessary distinction.
Freshmeat
based on Asian Development Bank’s wiki,
a simple google search shows that the largest creditor is Asian Development Bank, followed by Japan, then China. And Reuters quote an anonymous source saying China is the top creditor?
First rate storytelling indeed
Ken
but also its diplomatic interest in checking China's growing presence in the region.
noriahojanen
It's a good move. Beijing always prefers to make a deal with the debtor state in one-on-one bilateral negotiations which often end up further exploitative and discriminatory terms (worse, many of such bailout programmes(?) have yet to be reported to IMF).
There is already the case of multilevel talks over debt restructuring for Zambia where France brought China to a negotiation table.
Rodney
China was there first.
JeffLee
@Alfie
Apples and oranges Those were bonds that Sri Lanka issued and sold on the capital markets to whoever wanted to buy them, which is something nearly all countries do. If the institutions didn’t buy them, Sri Lanka would have defaulted a long time ago and its situation would have been a lot worse.
The obligation is fairly simple and strictly financial: the country pays back the interest and principal. However, when governments, ie, China and Japan, lend money to Sri Lanka, then things get a lot more complicated, problematic and nefarious.
We’re talking big powerful countries attempting to gain power and influence over small, vulnerable and impoverished countries through financial dependency. That’s why these debts need to be worked out. Sri Lanka defaulting to Blackrock wouldn’t be a big deal, beyond a credit rating downgrade. Defaulting to Beijing or Tokyo would have serious geopolitical implications. Your left-wing media wont tell you this.
Temyong
Like Sri Lanka, several countries have become insolvent like Argentina, Mexico, Pakistan, Iceland, Lebanon, etc. and many more are on their way to bankruptcy. The globalists lured countries to indebtedness so that they can gain control of those countries to set up their one world economy and one world government. These countries will be absorbed into a regional power and ten regions will be formed. These globalists have already divided the world into ten regions - which is the beast govt of the end times with ten horns. Out of the three horns will come the final world dictator, the AntiChrist who will have total control of the world through AI technology, blockchain technology, trade agreements, environmental policies, and health regulations by unelected global bureaucrats.
CrashTestDummy
Sri Lanka is another example of complete failure of government policies like Venezuela. Sri Lanka dramatically cut fossil fuels which drove the prices into hyperinflation, cut fertilizers which collapsed the agriculture industry, and the economy went into complete collapse.
Sh1mon M4sada
wot a crock o shite ^. China has been forcing Sri Lanka to restructure debt so as to make debt appears to be private debt rather than government debt, eg the Hambantota port.
Fake news maketh a fakey character. You also omitted the fact, Chinese debt was on top of, existing responsible debt, which makes debt to China usury.
Sh1mon M4sada
https://www.ship-technology.com/analysis/hambantota-port-china-sri-lanka/
...read and avoid fakeies.
Vicky
Nothing against helping friends when they have a hard time, but added to the financial aid to Africa, hopefully, it wasn't ordered from Japan's bigger ally.
Tom San
The PRC can help them.
Axel
Utter nonsense. The Japanese government has been warning for months about inflation related to food and energy. It will probably get worse. It may triple to around 8% in the coming months. By which time it'll be around 30% in the UK, 20% in USA, 18% in Germany, 1% in India, China, Russia.
Antiquesaving
I am not convinced Japan doesn't have problem solving skills.
Japan was 2.4% in July compared to western countries all over 7%,
Why the difference? Could it be because Japan is finally refusing to follow the typical western oriented system and is the only G7 not to raise interest rates as well as use other "not recommended" measures (AKA not western economy oriented measures).
Asian is a very different place, than Europe or North America, the sense of "collective" nature of the society is different.
Problems always arise when Asian countries try doing things or acting like western countries.
Look around, the Japanese government has certain things it keeps tight controls on, so does South Korea, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc...each one has certain priorities, but not to protect industry like western countries imposed controls but for the population and as long as these things are available to the population at a reasonable price the populations are fine to wait out difficult times.
The west it is more I want it all and I individual oriented society.
Sri Lanka leadership forgot what part of the world it was living in.
Perhaps it is just the right time for Japan to admit it is part of Asia and take the collective nature of the Japanese and put it to good use.
sakurasuki
Japan willing to chair but not to pay that 6.2 billion right?
Mark
A nation in debt to China is a dead nation.
This is how China is and will dominate the third world.
Antiquesaving
Really.
Inflation rates of the G7
Japan: 2.4%
France: 6.08%
Germany: 7.5%
Canada: 7.6%
Italy: 8.4%
USA: 8.5%
UK: 10%
Looks to me perhaps Japan knows something the others don't!