China has said the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka was developed with a "win-win spirit" and "equal-footed consultation" with the host nation after the island nation's newly-elected president called the deal a "mistake" and should be renegotiated, a media report said on Saturday.
Earlier this week, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said giving away the Hambantota port to China on a 99-year lease was a "mistake" by the previous government headed by President Maithripala Sirisena.
"The deal has to be renegotiated. Giving a small loan for investment is a different thing but giving a strategic important economic harbour is not acceptable. That we should have controlled," Rajapaksa said in Colombo.
Responding to an email query by the Daily Mirror newspaper, the Spokesperson's Office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing said, "Our cooperation, including the project of Hambantota Port, are based on equal-footed consultation and win-win spirit."
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