BANGKOK -- China's economic stakes in Sri Lanka are in focus as the bankrupt South Asian nation scrapes the last of its usable foreign reserves. By late April those funds had shrunk to $50 million, a government minister revealed to parliament in a rare moment of candor.
The admission by then Finance Minister Ali Sabry inadvertently exposed the strings attached to a Chinese financial lifeline the government of ultranationalist President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had hitherto concealed to boost the official reserve figures, which were hovering over $1.5 billion during the first quarter of this year.
