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The Many Questions Raised by Sri Lanka’s Debt Crisis

by Cobus van Staden
Demonstrators stage a protest against Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe at Presidential Secretariat in Colombo on July 20, 2022. Arun SANKAR / AFP

Sri Lanka’s ongoing debt nightmare is back in the headlines, with both the U.S. government and the International Monetary Fund calling for greater Chinese engagement.

The controversy raises a few questions. First and most urgently, there are questions about the thinking of Chinese creditors. Here, the hotly awaited outcome of Zambia’s debt negotiations will likely draw the parameters of the kinds of concessions Chinese creditors could make in the Sri Lanka case.

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