Matt Bevan

The thing is, though, the harbour wasn't actually ready.

There was an enormous rock sitting in the mouth of the port, just beneath the surface of the water.

Thankfully, they discovered the rock with an underwater survey before any large ships learnt about it the very, very hard way.

But there was also another elephant in the room, literally.

Wild elephants, which had historically grazed in the area and were unperturbed by the large fences, regularly trampled through the port area looking for food.

As in much of the world, an exploding population of humans has created a war with nature.

The biggest problem for the new port of Hambantota, however, was that even if they could get the underwater rocks and elephants under control, nobody actually wanted to use it.

Especially when Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, which is just 260 kilometres away, had a very well-developed port that was more than capable of handling all of the country's trade requirements.

The multi-billion dollar Mahinda Rajapaksa Port in Hambantota was a white elephant being periodically attacked by grey ones.

The Sri Lankan government had taken out massive loans to build it, which they then struggled to pay back.

But that was okay, because they quickly found a buyer.

A Chinese government owned company bought a 99 year lease of the port and it wasn't the only one they bought.

Recently, it's been expanding, snapping up ports in Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

The company, called China Merchants, owns a lot of profitable ports, but in the last decade it's been buying up ports like that one in Sri Lanka that make no financial sense at all.

15 years after this port opened, most ships still just sail right past it on their way between Africa and Asia, so it doesn't make a lot of revenue.

The only reason anyone would want to own it is because one day in the future you might want to exert some influence over the traffic going past you through the Indian Ocean.

So, Xi Jinping buys a port on a key global shipping route.

In other, more chessy words, Knight to B5.

Seems to make sense, right?

So, what's his next move?