China: Emerging 'qibla' for struggling Sri Lanka

China is showing a new direction (qibla) to follow for economies suffocating under a US-led capitalist order.

- By Dr. Ameer Ali

To its credit China had successfully uplifted nearly 800 million of its citizens from abject poverty during the last four decades while Trump's measures to protect the wealth and assets of his oligarchs are set to impoverish the working poor in his own country. His desperation became even more acute when he announced his wishes to annex Canada as the 51st state of US, acquire Greenland from Denmark either peacefully or militarily, rename Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America through an executive order and acquiring through BlackRock-led acquisition two key ports along the Panama Canal. Finally, his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar crowned with a gift of a $ 400 million worth luxury Jet aircraft from Qatar was more in search of investments and markets than to bring peace to the Middle East.

That trip exhibited how despondent US has become economically to survive as a superpower. With UK and EU negotiating measures to counter US tariff attack and Canada remaining steadfast in remaining independent, crack in the Western alliance has begun to widen, and it is time the baton of world leadership passed to the East.

It is in this global context of a cracking and collapsing so-called rules based international order, fractured by economic crises, financial bankruptcies, resource depletion and institutional incapacitation as blatantly demonstrated in the case of UN Aid Agencies' inability to get those thousands of aid-carrying trucks blocked by Israel to enter Gaza that struggling economies like Sri Lanka should look towards the East for economic opportunities and leadership. The recent visit by Chinese investors to meet Sri Lankan President AKD is a welcoming sign, and China's roadmap to deepen its economic relations with Sri Lanka should receive positive reception in political circles.

Learning from China's miraculous economic transformation