evidence: China holds roughly 6.2 percent of Sri Lanka’s total central government debt – some as central government debt (around $670 million) but mostly as debt through state-owned banks like China EXIM Bank and China Development Bank (CDB), totaling around $7 billion. These loans have financed myriad projects: utilities, roads and highways (parts of the Southern Expressway and Central Expressway), ill-conceived ports and airports, vanity convention centers, and telecom towers. Consequently, questions around the value Sri Lanka received for these Chinese loans have lingered over the last decade. [...] Views taken by Chinese officials have changed over the weeks and months following Sri Lanka’s debt default decision. Immediately after the April 12th announcement, China’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka Qi Zhenhong said that "China has done its best to help Sri Lanka not to default but sadly they went to the IMF and decided to default […] the debt restructuring definitely will have an impact on future bilateral loans." Qi added – quite controversially – that "[c]ountries that colonized Sri Lanka have more obligations to help at this juncture." This came on the back of China rejecting a request (made by the Sri Lankan government in March 2022) to reschedule its loans. China instead offered refinancing – a new $1 billion loan to help repay part of the existing loans.