Ceylon Today Editorial

ENTER CONFUSION INTO FOREIGN POLICY

23 April 2017

When national security is in the final essay at stake, one is constrained to sound a timely warning lest the government gets encouraged by gentle criticism and hence runs away with the idea that, by some weird sense of imagination this country belongs to its members. It does not. Not even to the President and the Prime Minister and the entirety of the Cabinet or the whole of Parliament, lest some strange mental alchemy has persuaded them into a conviction that a public trust is de facto ownership.

We say this because the government persists in going ahead with what is, to all and sundry, very clear that the entirety of the agreement with China is a dismal...or worse still, a callous display, of unconcern about the fact that inherent in the entire Hambantota Port and IP zone project is a threat of unimaginable proportions to the peace and stability of Sri Lanka as well as to the security of India. Besides this, let us not forget that Hambantota can also be leveraged to back Pakistan more in the solution to the Kashmiri issues with India. That would then mean that Sri Lanka, by conceding Hambantota to the Chinese, will be inadvertently...though now knowingly...allowing Lankan maritime and air space to be used against neighbouring India. One hopes the government's leaders do not make the mistake of running away with the idea that Indian Premier NarendraModi is weak in the brain. The entire stance on Hambantota with the lame explanations trotted out to date by the government will simply not hold water because they all go against the principles of what should be the essence of good neighbourly concern.

Let's not forget that China made an enormous blunder when Xi Jinping, sent Defence Minister General Chang Wanquan to Colombo on the 20th of last month on expanding defence ties between the two countries in talks with President Sirisena, purportedly on an invitation extended by Sri Lanka's Defence Ministry.

What could be worrying for Narendra Modi is the fact that President Sirisena stated that the two countries will sign several agreements but that those agreements will not do any harm to the pride, independence and national security of Sri Lanka.

He said nothing about whether these agreements would or would not harm similar interests of India.

Interestingly, Vice Admiral Su Zhiqian, Deputy Commander of the Navy of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), accompanied Wanquan for the top level talks.

But to date we have been told nothing about the agreements to be signed with China...or when they would be signed and what the nature of those agreements would be. The presence of the Chinese Deputy Naval Chief would suggest a naval factor to a new defence agreement with China perhaps.

This immediately prompted Indian policymakers to opine that while the Chinese play for Hambantota and Sri Lanka falling for it hook, line and sinker, began as an ostensibly straightforward investment arrangement, the Chinese Defence Minister's visit was perhaps aimed at adding leverage to ensure Sri Lanka does not alter the Hambantota agreements to the extent that it would be inimical to Chinese military/naval objectives in the Indian Ocean. It's no small matter when 20,000 acres of land get converted from an apparently genuine investment prospect into a full-fledged Chinese-owned and Chinese-run enclave that can change complexion at a moment's notice. In Delhi, the worry is that the enhanced defence ties reportedly spoken about at the Sirisena-Wanquan talks would almost certainly include Hambantota harbour as well as a huge land mass. India is now trying hard to ensure an effective countervailing influence, over the now promising growth of Chinese defence relations with Sri Lanka and is said to be featuring in negotiations to be cemented when Narendra Modi visits Colombo in less than three weeks.

Besides India, even the UK had occasion to sound concerns about Sri Lanka's links with China in talks with President Sirisena on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Day celebrations in London early last month, where the latter assured UK Defence Minister Michael Fallon that Sri Lanka was determined to handle its foreign policy in a way not inimical to anyone.

But what is of essence in this exercise is not what is said but what transpires on the ground when the dust has settled over all the signed agreements. New Delhi and other nations are more concerned with the fact that the status quo between Sri Lanka and China have, despite all the rhetoric about non-alignment and assurances to other nations, returned to even greater heights at which they were during the Rajapaksa regime.

What all of this shows other nations is that the government has begun getting its lines somewhat badly crossed on foreign policy issues and has got bogged down in the China quagmire.

A foreign policy that lacks an even playing field for other nations within the country's land and maritime boundaries can hardly be described as rational. 'Confused' perhaps describes it more accurately.