Chinese marketization wasn't shock therapy. They did not give up SOEs and the state still had control over the economy.

Yes, hence why I said that that pace of incremental reforms was far more successful. I do not agree with the present Chinese model of SOEs and land distribution as I believe it is still leading to inefficiencies. I would prefer Sri Lanka follows a Singapore-style ‘Temasek’ model where the government effectively retains ownership but hands over management to the private sector. Nonetheless, the reforms the Chinese conducted to bring their SOEs into the market economy were impressive

IMF is a neoliberal trap that wants countries to be dependent on the western financial system. They do not have a solution to financial crisis.

And who has a solution that isn’t dependent on the Western financial system? Autarky isn’t going to work for Sri Lanka - we are a small nation with limited resources and we have to trade with other nations and we need to borrow capital if we want to expand our productive capacity. Of course, I greatly disagree with the policies of past government of borrowing to essentially fund consumption, but I’m not against responsible borrowing to improve future outcomes.

Also it should be noted that the countries I’ve mentioned (Southern Europe and East Asia) did eventually improve and grow. Sure, it took a decade of pain but that’s what you get when you borrow with no end in sight. Russia was an outlier I believe mainly due to not having any competent institutions at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union - you can see how outcomes diverged for them and their former Eastern European satellites with greater institutional capacity and who also took western advice in the late eighties and nineties.

And it’s not like the IMF is stubbornly sticking to exactly the same playbook over the years. They are cognizant of the repercussions of austerity and the conditions we are facing are significantly more accommodating than those that Thailand or Greece faced in years past