From The Diplomat, April 17:
The Indian Ocean has no shortage of distressed strategic assets: financially stressed yards, ports, and logistics infrastructure in small states that cannot sustain them independently.
Nearly 20 years after China stirred fears about “debt trap diplomacy” with its construction and takeover of the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka, India is stepping into the fold, acquiring a majority stake in Sri Lanka’s largest commercial shipyard.
Last month, Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL), India’s leading defense public-sector undertaking, responsible for the construction and repair of Indian warships, acquired a majority 51 percent stake in Colombo Dockyard PLC (CDPLC). CDPLC is Sri Lanka’s largest commercial shipyard, located inside Colombo Harbor on one of the world’s busiest east-west shipping lanes.
The transaction, valued at $26.8 million, marks the first international acquisition ever made by an Indian shipyard, public or private. It also suggests India’s strategic calculus in its own maritime neighborhood has structurally evolved.
CDPLC is not a greenfield project. It is a functioning, 52-year-old commercial yard with four graving drydocks, capacity to handle vessels up to 125,000 deadweight tons, and a client base spanning Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. In November 2025, before the acquisition closed, CDPLC secured the largest shipbuilding contract in its history (valued at $150 million) from France’s Orange Marine for two advanced cable-laying vessels. The yard services more than 200 vessels annually.
Its location matters, as over a third of global bulk cargo and two-thirds of the world’s oil shipments pass through the Indian Ocean. MDL now controls the shipyard infrastructure at that crossroads, with Indian nominees reconstituting the board, and the Dredging Corporation of India signing an MoU with CDPLC for drydocking and ship repair services....
....MUCH MORE
If interested see also:
2017 - "The New Great Game moves from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific"
3019 - "New Sri Lanka government wants to undo deal to lease port to China for 99 years"
Across Central Asia to Africa and beyond many of the countries that cut deals with China want out.
And then there's Sri Lanka. This one was weird from the get-go.*
2020 - No Belt, No Road: "Adani Group set to develop Sri Lanka’s East Container Terminal in Colombo port"
Somehow related:
The Softer Side Of Clausewitz
And many, many more.
