At Hambantota, a remote fishing town on Sri Lanka's south coast, Chinese engineers dig a channel through the beaches, connecting the Indian Ocean with a vast inland pit, whose soaring concrete walls dwarf the earth-moving equipment working below.
Next year, project managers will fill this man-made crater with water, creating the first phase of an international harbour that will service the passing ships of the oil trade between east Asia and the Middle East.
“There are a lot of local crowds who come to see this,” says an official guide, who takes tourists to a vantage point where Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka's president, is pictured standing alongside Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier.
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