Strategic Rebalancing of Global Political Forces and the Defeat of MR
Posted on February 22nd, 2015
R Chandrasoma
It might appear at first that the defeat of MR is the result of the interplay of strictly local forces and agencies arising from discontents and antagonisms that are inevitable at the close of a long and event-filled Presidency – one that excited the envy – even hate – of foreigners while charming most of the natives. Let us begin with some hard facts about our neighborhood. India was once a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement and the thought of being ‘cozy’ with the Crusading Champion of the so-called ‘Free World’ – the USA – seemed absurd.
This ‘absurdity’ is now ‘turned on its head’ and the flamboyant new leader of India (Modi) is so enraptured by his new friendship with the old political ‘honcho’ of the ‘Free World’ that he flaunts this friendship and works hard for the goodwill of his new patron. Let us expand on this – it was believed for decades that Sri Lanka being a ‘friend’ and close neighbor of India. political meddling by outside powers in its internal affairs would be unwelcome if not forcibly resisted. No longer is this the case. We shall try to show that the defeat of MR in Sri Lanka has long connections with the geopolitical re-balancing of forces that now threatens the stability of our world.
First things first – the ‘Superpower’ (the USA) is much troubled by the current ‘phase shift’ in the state of the world. No longer is its role as the ‘doyen’ of the rich and powerful assured. Briefly put, there are three principal threats to its current (if shaky) dominance – a virulent form of globe-girdling Muslim militancy that followed disastrously from its recent neo-colonial military misadventures in West Asia, the decline in global standing of Western Europe and the challenge to NATO by a new and resurgent Russia led by Putin and – last but not least – the thrusting commercialism of a New China that seeks to access Africa for the commercial exploitation of its unknown riches.
Sri Lanka lies strategically in the Indian Ocean and the famous Silk Route must hug its shores for the efficient commercial operation of the main-works in China. Let us cut a long story short – the embattled superpower did cast its troubled eye on the minor player Sri Lanka and found its new-found ‘intimacy’ with China a troublesome complication in a much larger issue of its relationship with China. Could the New India under Modi help to thwart these moves? Well – India was already troubled by a rising China and found the new-found fellowship with the one-time denounced global hegemon most useful if not exactly in consonance with the high-falutin moral stance of ‘Non-Alignment’ adopted by India under Nehru.
If the Sri Lankan connection with China was to be blunted, then a regime-change was essential as MR was seen as the promoter and protector of Chinese interests in Sri Lanka. The details must be left to historians – but the brute fact remains unassailable – that the political campaign against MR had external support and direction with India and the USA working closely with select staff in Western Embassies, Diasporic Tamils and natives of our own land long known to resent Sinhala Nationalism of the kind that MR was supposed to symbolize. Strange thing happened – unheard of in functional democracies – a humdrum politico of MR’s party was anointed and publicly celebrated as the future President by a cabal of notorious defeatist in the alien camp.
A man repeatedly rejected at elections became the all-powerful boss of of the New Movement to overthrow MR and restore what was called ‘yahapalanaya’ –fairness and justice in politics. The one-time supporters of MR in Parliament became victims of a kind of political ‘castration’ that baffles everybody. Were these bizzarre political mutations an instance of democracy at work? The details of this sorry drama are too well known to be recounted here. We end with a Question – was the great Yahapalayana Movement engineered by global champions of Naripalayana? More philosophically, justice must have roots in the just pursuit of goals. This did not happen in the last Presidential election where MR became a targeted fugitive from the fury of mobs.
February 22nd, 2015 at 8:22 am
Truth is evident India is working with USA and West to check the growing influence of China. USA seems to have checkmated atleast for the time being Russia over Ukrain.
Chandrasoma isn’t a India-China-Russia union the answer to checkmate the disastrous and reactionary USA foreign policy to maintain its leadership in the world ?
February 22nd, 2015 at 12:12 pm
Charles,
I agree, strategic alliance of India, China and Russia would be the answer. Someday it might happen since BRICS is on its way to do it. But we must resolve our internal problems before that alliance getting fully materialized. Because after the alliance, we lose our strategic significance and leverages, precisely China card that we can use to keep India at arm’s length.
February 22nd, 2015 at 1:06 pm
Endia and China will NEVER join forces!!!!!
They are heading to indirect war. Russia is now a poor country. Russia will further breakup.
We have to admit these FACTS. BRICS is not going anywhere.
Endia is now on the U.S. LAP.
February 22nd, 2015 at 3:49 pm
Lorenzo is wrong. China has money but militarily China is back word. Russia may not be rich. but it has hugh resources and militarily it is advanced than the USA.
India is slow and going no where that is true. BRICS need time.
It is the same with IMF and world bank too.
February 22nd, 2015 at 8:19 pm
Though the BRICS nations have taken up the manufacturing part of global industrialism from the West, countries like China, India, and Russia are not having any cemented alliances but rivalry. The all weather partnership between China and Sri Lanka under MR was considered so detrimental for India. Thus, India funded regime change had been activated and halfway succeeded. But the transformation of the lesson learned as well as the danger identified Nugegoda Man is going to play an important role to come as RW is attempting to exploit the divided SLFP voter base to stay in power and implement policies favoring Minorities in this country where the Majority mass is being always left out .. Is Sri Lanka willing to give up what it has achieved militarily since three decades over the terror ?
February 22nd, 2015 at 10:29 pm
THIS IS THE THIN END of THE WEDGE in DISMANTLING Sri Lanka’s Powerful Armed Forces!
Gotabhaya ACTED UPON suggestions made by a host of PATRIOTS to OFFSET the cost of MAINTAING a LARGE Sri Lanka Defence Force by using them in National Development work such as CONSTRUCTION of Civilian Infrastructure.
In that way it would be possible to Maintain Battle-Ready Armed Forces to defend the Nation against ANY & ALL LOCAL & FOREIGN enemies. That is CALLED DETERENCE! Now, that Ran Weta DEFENDING our Motherland is being DISMANTLED!
Next will come AN EXCUSE that the COST of DEFENCE is TOO HIGH, UNSUSTAINABLE and the numbers of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Coast Guard men MUST BE REDUCED to BALANCE the BUDGET! A self-fulfilling Prophecy since the Development Funds used to maintain them was taken away!
WHO WILL BENEFIT from This?
The TAMIL Eelamist SEPARATISTS demanding REMOVAL of Army bases in the North, and the emerging Hard-Core MUSLIM SEPARATISTS demanding the “Return of Land to Muslims” in the East … OF COURSE!
Aiyooooo Sirisenaaaa …. You are WRECKING the DEFENCES of our MOTHERLAND built as such great COST in BLOOD & TREASURE!
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Sri Lankan government directs thousands of soldiers engaged in labor work back to their regiments
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Feb 22, Colombo: The government of Sri Lanka has reassigned close to 18,000 soldiers who were deployed to work on development projects under the former government back to their regiments.
The former government had deployed around 18,000 military personnel to work in most of its development projects and most of them worked as laborers.
Deputy Urban Development Minister Dunesh Gankanda told the media that the objective was to ensure that their jobs were protected and their services were not used for labor work.
He said that only soldiers required for skilled work such as technicians would be retained in projects and the others will be sent back to their units.
President Maithripala Sirisena during the election campaign pledged to ensure the dignity of forces personnel by not deploying them for laborers’ work.
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Sri Lanka Muslim party expresses concerns over land issue in the Eastern Province
ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
Feb 22, Colombo: Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), an ally of the Sri Lankan government has expressed concern over the land issue in the Eastern Province.
The SLMC has written to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe about the concerns over land yet to be returned to Muslims in the Eastern Province.
SLMC General Secretary M.T. Hassan Ali has stated in the letter that the Muslims want a solution to the issue ahead of the announcement of general elections.
The SLMC has noted that the illegal dispossession of land is affecting thousands of Sri Lanka’s citizens in the Eastern Province.
“This land has been occupied, cultivated and improved over the last thirty years by these citizens. But today they are being forcibly and irregularly dispossessed and denied the ability to exercise their rights to utilize their lands in freedom and without restriction, despite having done so for a very long period of time,” Hassan Ali has stated, adding that repeated representations to relevant authorities have failed to secure return of the respective lands.
The SLMC has pointed out that the failure to resume possession of, use and enjoy respective lands by the Muslims in the area has drastically affected their lives and those of their families.
“Thus, these citizens remain denied of their rights and in relation to lands that their families occupied/cultivated/improved for over three decades. This continuous denial of their rights is referable to failure of the authorities to take proper steps and measures,” Hassan Ali has noted in the letter.
February 22nd, 2015 at 10:47 pm
An ALERT for Sri Lanka’s Leaders on The CHANGING of the Economic Super Powers: Fore-Warned is Fore-Armed!
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THE GLOBALIST QUIZ
China vs. USA, Economic Edition
The weekly quiz is provided by the Globalist, a daily online feature service that covers issues and trends in globalization. The nonpartisan organization provides commercial services and nonprofit educational features.
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QUESTION
China has long been the world’s largest nation in terms of population. But only since undertaking radical economic reforms in the late 1970s did the country’s economy begin to prosper again. We wonder: When will China overtake the United States as the world’s largest economy?
ANSWER
A. It already has
B. It will by 2028
C. It will by 2050
D. Probably not in this century
A. It already has … is correct.
China’s re-emergence as an economic superpower began in the late 1970s, when then-leader Deng Xiaoping introduced a series of economic reforms that came to be known as “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Deng’s reforms emphasized modernization, openness to foreign trade and investment and privatization of state-owned companies — all of which provided a sustained growth impulse. By 2013, the Chinese economy had grown to $16.1 trillion, measured at purchasing power parity. The U.S. GDP stood at $16.8 trillion at that time, about 4 percent larger than China’s economy. The IMF estimates that China’s GDP at purchasing power parity was $17.6 trillion at the end of 2014 — or about 1 percent larger than the U.S. GDP of $17.4 trillion. Measuring GDP at purchasing power parity takes into account the differences in prices that people pay for goods and services in different economies. Since the price level in China is still much lower than the U.S., a dollar in China buys much more than a dollar in the U.S.
B. It will by 2028 … is correct.
Back in 1980, the size of China’s economy was just $309 billion, as measured at market exchange rates in U.S. dollars. That was roughly a 10th of the size of the U.S. economy in 1980 ($2.9 trillion). By 2014, the gap between the size of the $10.4 trillion Chinese economy and the $17.4 trillion U.S. economy had narrowed to just 40 percent. Measuring GDP at market exchange rates simply converts the value of all goods and services produced in each economy into a single currency (in this case, U.S. dollars) using the current exchange rate. While China is not expected to sustain the 10 percent annual growth rates of the past few decades, it is expected to maintain a significant growth advantage over advanced industrial economies such as the United States. Consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers projects that China will grow at an annual rate of 4.6 percent from now to 2050, while the United States will grow by 2.4 percent a year.
C. It will by 2050 … is not correct.
By midcentury, China will almost certainly have long secured its spot at the head of the global economic league table. However, by 2050 it is possible that the U.S. economy will not just be smaller than China’s, but India’s as well. A little more than a decade after China launched its market-based reforms, India jumped into the growth game as well. India’s economic liberalization policies, inaugurated in 1991, opened the economy to foreign investment. As of 2014, India’s $7.3 trillion economy was the world’s third-largest, measured in terms of purchasing power parity. However, it is at present only a little over 40 percent as large as the U.S. and Chinese economies. While India’s growth has not been as strong as China’s over the past two decades, its growth rate is expected to outpace China’s in the coming decades. The Indian economy is expected to be about 2 percent larger than the U.S.’s by midcentury — but about 30 percent smaller than China’s economy.
D. Probably not in this century … is correct.
China’s 3 decades of remarkable economic growth have lifted about 500 million people out of poverty, according to the World Bank. Despite this transformation, however, China’s per-capita income remains only a fraction of the U.S. level. In 2014, China’s per capita GDP of $12,890 (measured at purchasing power parity) was less than a fourth of U.S. per capita GDP ($54,680). New forecasts of long-term economic growth by PricewaterhouseCoopers estimate that from 2014 to 2050, China’s per capita GDP will grow at nearly double the U.S. rate (an average of 3.4 percent per year, compared to 1.8 percent). Even so, China’s per capita GDP will equal only 42 percent of the U.S. level by 2050. Even if China’s growth advantage remains this large for the rest of the century, its per-capita GDP will still only reach about 90 percent of U.S. per-capita GDP.
February 22nd, 2015 at 11:03 pm
Greece’s woes (see article below) under the EURO-ZONE Troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, and the IMF) are LIKELY to befall Sri Lanka as we switch from China to the World Bank and the IMF!
How STUPID can the Yahapalanaya government GET pushing out CHINA as our RELIABLE and STABLE Lender which is the PRIMARY LENDER to the United States and Europe, who then LEND to the World Bank and the IMF??
EVERYONE KNOWS that INTEREST RATES rise as you proceed from the PRIMARY Lender, to SECONDARY and TERTIARY Lenders, everyone taking a cut down the line!!
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Greece to submit reforms list by Sunday
by Demetris Nellas
February 23 2015, 8:37 AM
Greece will submit a list of reforms to be agreed with its creditors Sunday, the country’s finance minister said Saturday.
“We are in the process of compiling the list of reforms for the institutions,” finance minister Yanis Varoufakis told reporters Saturday evening, following an inner cabinet meeting under prime minister Alexis Tsipras.
Following weeks of accusations and distrust, Greece and its creditors in the 19-nation eurozone reached an agreement Friday to extend the country’s rescue loans, a move that should dramatically ease concerns it was heading for the euro exit as soon as next month.
The agreement means that Greece will avoid going bankrupt, at least over the four months of the extension. To get the money though, the Greek government has to present a series of unspecified economic reforms that are deemed acceptable by creditors and rooted in Greece’s previously enacted bailout agreement — something the government had promised not to do.
Varoufakis on Saturday said the list of reforms would be submitted in good time, giving the creditors as much time as possible to assess it.
He added he is very confident that the list will be approved “the institutions” — meaning the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, previously collectively referred to as “the Troika.”
Replacing the word “troika” with “institutions” in official communication about the negotiations was a semantic concession to the new government, which has been telling Greeks that they have got rid of the Troika. The term itself had been associated in the minds of Greeks with mid-level officials representing the three institutions visiting the country and bossing around ministers.
Varoufakis said Greece and the creditors will discuss the reform list via teleconference Monday. If the institutions approve it, talks for the completion of the existing bailout package will continue. If not, the eurozone’s finance ministers will hold a new Eurogroup meeting Tuesday.
Earlier, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras hailed the “important success” of Greece’s negotiations with its creditors, but warned that more difficult consultations lie ahead.
“We won a battle, but not the war. The difficulties lie ahead of us,” Tsipras said in a TV appearance, adding Greece is now seeing “the end of austerity and the bailout.”
Faced with criticism that he came away with few concessions, Tsipras clearly aimed to put his own spin on the deal.
“20 days ago, we took over a country on the edge of the abyss, with an empty Treasury, and facing suffocating deadlines,” Tsipras claimed, despite the fact that Greece achieved a modest growth last year as well as a primary budget surplus.
Tsipras didn’t specify what reforms would be considered but mentioned a crackdown on tax evasion and corruption, reforming the state sector and dealing with the country’s “humanitarian crisis.”
The agreement was greeted with relief by some Greeks as a first step forward and away from the crushing austerity of recent years. Others were more skeptical, wondering whether the left-wing Syriza government will be able to keep even a fraction of its promises and how it will find the money to finance them.
“It was a good start. There is a long way ahead of us, but I am optimistic. At least things will not get worse,” said Thomas Michalopoulos, 34, a private company employee.
“I don’t know. Where will they find the money to fund all those promises they have made?” asked Maria Kefala, a university student and journalist.
“I think that nothing changed,” added retiree Paradissanos Rigas, 72.
February 25th, 2015 at 10:57 pm
“Oh what a tangled mess we weave.
When first we practise to deceive”…….
This is what has befallen Sri Lanka’s political leadership of the Maithri Yugaya, and has led to what was a stable and well defended Sri Lanka being completely messed up by the UNP in connivance with part of the SLFP (CBK/my4)whose ambition and vengeance, and above all, a lack of understanding of consequences that will soon erupt the country into
February 25th, 2015 at 11:23 pm
“Oh what a tangled mess we weave.
When first we practise to deceive”…….Sir Walter Scott
This is what has befallen Sri Lanka’s political leadership of the so-called “Maithri Yugaya”, and has led to what was a stable and well defended Sri Lanka being completely messed up by the UNP in connivance with part of the SLFP (CBK/my4)whose ambition and vengeance, and above all, a lack of responsibility and understanding of the consequences that would follow in the wake of the political mess being created, in perspective of the world situation today, that could erupt the country into a cauldron as not experienced before, but seen elsewhere.
How do we get out of this is the question that should engage all concerned.
PS Excuse the previous post which took off before completion. Tx!