TUGGING on a red curtain, the president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, opened a gleaming new toll road late last month. The $290m motorway links Colombo’s airport to the capital, 26 kilometres (16 miles) away, and like so much in Sri Lanka these days, it is funded by China. Soon it will be whisking dignitaries to a summit of Commonwealth leaders, which Sri Lanka hosts this year, on November 15th-17th.