{"id":152420,"date":"2025-10-05T15:30:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T22:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=152420"},"modified":"2025-10-05T15:30:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T22:30:58","slug":"npp-leaders-are-anti-western-marxist-so-says-the-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2025\/10\/05\/npp-leaders-are-anti-western-marxist-so-says-the-usa\/","title":{"rendered":"NPP Leaders are Anti-Western & Marxist: So says the\u00a0USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

e-Con e-News<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

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blog: eesrilanka.wordpress.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Before you study the economics, study the economists!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

e-Con e-News 28 September \u2013 04 October 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Ranil Wickremesinghe had been a shrewd driver & just before he left the office, he got the parliament to enact special legislation\u00a0binding future governments<\/em> to uphold the goals set by him. That legislation, the\u00a0Economic<\/em><\/strong> Transformation Act\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0ETA<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0had nothing to do with transforming<\/em> the economy<\/em>\u00a0but adding to the law books the\u00a0goals & targets set by IMF<\/strong> for its EFF\u00a0<\/strong>(Extended Fund Facility) \u2026 If AKD fails to attain these goals, his government is liable to be\u00a0challenged in courts<\/strong>.\u2019\u2013 WA Wijewardena (see\u00a0ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>, 1st<\/sup>\u00a0year of AKD Govt: Is it RW in driving seat with a difference?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Sri Lanka permits 100% foreign ownership<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

in most sectors, with constitutional guarantees for investment protection &\u00a0unrestricted<\/em> repatriation of earnings, fees, & capital.<\/em>\u2019\u2013 US State Department Report<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite all the \u2018driverless\u2019 remote controls, leghold traps & capital giveaways that grip the Sri Lanka government in bosom bondage, many US investors supposedly \u2018remain wary given the NPP leadership\u2019s historically anti-Western, Marxist-influenced ideology\u2019. So claims the US government\u2019s 2025 Investment Climate Statement<\/em>, even as former members & ardent critics of the present government claim, the JVP\u2019s brandishing of hammers & sickles and red flags & slogans about workers are but crimson icing for cakes programmed, made & baked elsewhere. (The standard \u2018Old Left\u2019 critique describes the JVP as an \u2018ultraleftist\u2019 decoction of the CIA, which has always been used to undermine any nationalist endeavours).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The US is nevertheless warning investors to plan \u2018exit strategies<\/strong>\u2019: \u2018Some senior government officials regularly castigate private sector-led economic growth<\/strong> & publicly promote state-owned collectivism<\/strong> as the country\u2019s preferred investment model.\u2019 And while the US government is publicly asserting its wish to make their own country \u2018great again\u2019, while claiming to end wars, even as they wage both horrific proxy \u2013 on Russia (Ukraine), West Asia (Palestine), China (Myanmar, Taiwan, etc.) \u2013 & undeclared wars (see ee Random Notes<\/em><\/strong>, Somalia) their stated aim in Sri Lanka is to \u2018reduce state dominance\u2019, and to \u2018simplify approvals\u2019 to privatize national resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The US report thus whines about \u2018rigid labour rules\u2019 \u2013 \u2018Rigid dismissal rules make restructuring [i.e., privatization] costly, while emigration has intensified shortages in IT, apparel, tourism & engineering.\u2019 Interestingly, they make no mention of the damage to our state health sector by emigration (aka brain drain). Yet they highlight, \u2018garment industry reports turnover rates of 40%\u2019 and somehow also lament that despite such \u2018rigidity\u2019, \u2018weak social protections<\/strong> & limited coverage for informal workers contribute further to labour market inflexibility<\/strong>\u2019. Inflexibility<\/em> is a euphemism for sacking workers easily. In fact, most business news is reported via such euphemistic synonyms for privatization, such as \u2018market access\u2019 etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Also groaning about \u2018restrictions on foreign participation\u2019, the same US report says it is busy \u2018eyeing\u2019 the \u2018ICT (information & communications tech), energy, aviation & defence<\/strong>\u2019 sectors, while demanding further privatization. The US claims, the current administration suspended the unelected Ranil Wickremesinghe government\u2019s \u2018privatisation efforts upon taking office\u2019. \u2018The Economic Transformation Act<\/strong>, which was intended to abolish the Board of Investment and replace it with 5 specialised agencies<\/strong>, has not been implemented, leaving approvals fragmented and slow\u2026 The stalled privatization of deficit-ridden State-owned enterprises, notably the Ceylon Electricity Board<\/strong>, hinders development of cost-effective<\/strong> energy supplies crucial for industrial operations.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018For Sri Lanka, US energy offers lower prices, diversification away from Middle East dependency, & the potential to turn Hambantota into a regional hub.\u2019DKW Wegapitiya (see\u00a0ee Industry<\/em><\/strong>, Energy imports from US offer the most practical & strategic solution)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest (US-controlled) World Bank team to visit Sri Lanka, met parliamentary \u2018finance oversight committees\u2019, and also added their 2 cents to US energy demands. They duly call for \u2018urgent energy, public sector & PPP reforms.\u2019 Meanwhile, WKH Wegapitiya, the founder of LAUGFS, which runs \u2018South Asia\u2019s largest LPG transshipment terminal in Hambantota\u2019, and recently tied up (described in apropos Trumpian hyperbole as \u2018a beautiful partnership\u2019) with Vallibel\u2019s Dhamikka Perera, is claiming, despite being far far away, that \u2018US energy imports\u2026 offer the most practical & strategic solution\u2019 (to the US imposition of high tariffs), \u2018to not only secure better terms for apparel exports but also position Hambantota as a gateway for US energy into Asia\u2019 Wegaptiya appears to be blissfully unaware that \u2018Middle Eastern\u2019 oil is still US (Exxon)-controlled. (Vallibel is linked to Hayleys, Delmege, etc, see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, for their historical role in the English underdevelopment of the country).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The US meanwhile, adding to the general merchant siren song of privatization, claims Sri Lanka\u2019s 527 national enterprises, \u2018including 55 designated as strategic\u2026 remain a major burden on public finances\u2019. The US report, nevertheless, offers \u2018a comprehensive overview of the investment conditions in over 170, providing a crucial starting point<\/strong> for US companies\u2019!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The US report inevitably gets around to its favorite war mongering tropes: \u2018The Government\u2019s decision to impose new taxes on service export firms while granting exemptions for [China\u2019s] Port City<\/strong> projects has reinforced perceptions of uneven treatment<\/strong>. Corruption in procurement persists despite legislation passed in 2023.\u2019 And purportedly lament their allies\u2019 misfortunes: \u2018Confidence was dented when Adani Green Energy exited a $400mn wind farm after the Government sought to renegotiate an awarded contract.\u2019 (\u2018Confidence\u2019 is yet another euphemism for merchant control)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Other areas the US is clearly eyeing are the \u2018restrictions on land & ownership<\/strong>\u2019: \u2018Foreign companies with more than 50% equity are generally barred from purchasing land<\/strong>, with only narrow exceptions\u2026 Caps of 40% apply across sectors such as agriculture<\/strong>, natural resources<\/strong>, shipping<\/strong> & education<\/strong>, while retail under $5mn, pawnbroking<\/em><\/strong> & coastal fishing<\/strong> are entirely prohibited.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The report also reveals how the US is salivating over \u2018the country\u2019s large, government-controlled pension funds, the Employees\u2019 Provident Fund & Employees\u2019 Trust Fund\u2019. This was recently enunciated by their favorite parliamentary proxies, for the ETF & EPF to provide long-term funding to small & medium enterprises (SMEs, another euphemism for fronts that vend foreign industrial products).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Standard Chartered Bank, SL, reported a total profit of Rs44,002,000;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

HSBC SL Branch reported Rs45,931,350; Citibank USA, SL Branch<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

reported: 21,199,660, 2020-24 \u2013 ChatGPT<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are 19,000 private equity funds, &<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

14,000 McDonald\u2019s food outlets in the US<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 ChatGPT<\/em> apparently cannot divulge how much profits, different banks and companies operating within Sri Lanka, remit, officially and unofficially, outside the country\u2026. Last week, ee<\/em><\/strong> noted the sale of England\u2019s HSBC\u2019s retail operations in Sri Lanka. However, HSBC is in fact not totally withdrawing<\/strong>, but is holding on to its \u2018Corporate & Institutional Banking\u2019 business, which \u2018enables 2-way trade & investment flows between clients operating in Sri Lanka & around the world\u2019. In March, Standard<\/strong> Chartered Bank (SCB)<\/strong>, had already said it would \u2018divest its wealth & retail business in Sri Lanka\u2019 while retaining its \u2018strong presence in the country through our Corporate & Institutional Banking (CIB)<\/strong> business, which will continue to connect Sri Lanka to global opportunities whilst helping international clients access the market here\u2019. SCB claims to be \u2018one of the oldest foreign banks\u2019 in Sri Lanka, with \u2018a network of 7 branches across 7 cities\u2019 (see ee Focus<\/em><\/strong>, for SCB\u2019s role in England\u2019s opium trade in China & colonial apartheid in South Africa).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Multinational banks claim: retail banking (checking\/savings accounts, small loans, mortgages) offer low-margin of profits compared to investment banking, wealth management, or corporate lending. They claim: \u2018Shifting demographics, accelerated technological advances (fintechs, digital payment) & rising consumer expectations \u2013 all in an increasingly crowded financial services ecosystem\u2019, make maintaining branch networks, ATMs & customer service staff costly. They don\u2019t mention that in a fraught economic climate, going after \u2018non-performing loans\u2019, court cases & seizing goods already sold are messy<\/strong> affairs, better left to local actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The claim for withdrawal is that traditional retail banks are now charging<\/strong> depositors \/ clients \/ customers to keep<\/em><\/strong> their money, offering minus to zero or low interest rates, while people have more profitable alternatives now, investing in a variety of other schemes, from term deposits to finance companies to stocks & crypto, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     For example, multinational banks are supposedly \u2018retreating\u2019 from Africa including South Africa because the domestic financial sector & new digital challengers dominate (so says, US credit rating agency Moody). The MNCs have \u2018struggled\u2019 to break into the country\u2019s retail banking market, but \u2018entrenched local players & fintech startups\u2019 have strong footholds. In Sept 2025, the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) gazetted the official closure of HSBC Private Bank in South Africa<\/strong>, ending 30 years of operations. HSBC\u2019s South African client base is being transferred to FirstRand\u2019s corporate & investment arm, Rand Merchant Bank (RMB). 5 major international finance groups have either closed their operations or scaled back in South Africa over the last 2 years. BNP Paribas shut down its corporate & investment banking business in May 2024. Barclays and Standard Chartered have \u2018significantly reduced their presence; across Africa.  Moody\u2019s claims the absence of standardized national identity (ID) systems<\/strong> in many countries, complicates compliance with strict \u2018know your customer\u2019 requirements. Foreign lenders are focusing on \u2018large corporates & high-net-worth clients\u2019 in urban centres, leaving vast segments of the population untouched<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Yet, when we delve deeper into these investment \u2018alternatives\u2019, many of them, including so-called private commercial banks & finance companies are controlled by imperialist multilateral agencies operated by the World Bank, ADB, etc, or by so-called development banks<\/em><\/strong>, which themselves are only fronts for their industrial exporters\u2019 associations<\/strong>. Last week\u2019s World Bank team included the IFC Senior Country Officer Victor Anthonypillai. The IFC (International Finance Corporation<\/strong>) is the World Bank\u2019s private lender, which has not only \u2018lent\u2019 money to private commercial banks (ComBank, etc.) but also to private companies like PickMe, Sunshine Holdings (which we suspect, with its palm-oil addictions, is either a Ceylon Tobacco Co or Unilever front) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 2016, information was leaked to the Sunday Times<\/em> (ST<\/em>) that Englsand\u2019s HSBC Sri Lanka branch allegedly passed \u2018bogus\u2019 loans to agriculture sector clients, to meet a Monetary Board (MB) stipulation that 10% of the loan portfolio of all commercial banks must go towards the agriculture sector<\/strong>. These loans were passed before the reporting date at the end of certain financial quarters, when the figures are officially conveyed to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL). The CBSL was \u2018informally\u2019 aware of what was going on but, former Governor Arjuna Mahendran\u2019s connections with HSBC (as its former Wealth Manager in Singapore) had allegedly helped avert trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     HSBC is predominantly a corporate bank<\/strong>. The loans \u2013 which amounted to short-term cash injections to the relevant corporate clients \u2013 were then reversed after the reporting date<\/strong>. The ST<\/em> knew the names of at least 2 companies involved but did not divulge them. These bogus loans helped HSBC to avoid the \u2018penalty\u2019 & to hoodwink the regulator. The MB had stipulated that, in the event any banks do not comply with the minimum 10%, the percentage shortfall as an equivalent amount in Sri Lankan rupees should be transferred to the refinance fund operated by the CBSL. Former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Patrick Gallagher was implicated and transferred to HSBC London. The bank was also alleged protecting senior Risk Managers, with auditors \u2018covering up the issue\u2019. The Chief Risk Officer (CRO) was suspended in December 2015, but reinstated to protect Gallagher, compromising the compliance risk model. It is \u2018always the local staff that suffer and have to pay the price\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2022 One of the merchant media\u2019s favorite myths in still-colonized Sri Lanka is that the English created & maintained an uncorrupt civil service & police and companies, and Sinhala politicians ruined this ruling machinery. This ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> offers some ohay references from Krisantha Sri Bhaggiyadatta\u2019s Very Personal Ingrisi History of the World<\/em>, which endeavors to show the enduring link between the colonial state & top banks & companies in Sri Lanka today, such as Standard Chartered, HSBC, Keells, Hayleys, etc. These details date the rise of England\u2019s merchants & agency houses<\/strong>, their forever-war-making state<\/strong>, which enabled the trade in chattel slavery of Africans, the indentured slavery of Indians & Chinese, and opium wars. Here then is the rule of a so-called aristocracy<\/em><\/strong> in England & their colony Scotland, which continues to this day in their colonial import-export plantation economy (especially Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co or P&O<\/strong>), whose corporate media has been one of the main architects of the charges of so-called \u2018corruption\u2019<\/em><\/strong> in Sri Lanka, and the so-called promoters of the myth of the \u2018Chinese Debt Trap\u2019 via Hambantota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Societies that live closer to the equator are warmer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why are they also poorer?\u2026 People are not lazier,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

they\u2019re just less productive in higher temperatures.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(see ee Economists<\/em><\/strong>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So insists a recent article headlined, Why Warm Countries Are Poorer<\/em>. Yet, as SBD de Silva searingly argues, such climatic theories have always been \u2018part of an ideology which rationalizes & naturalizes an existing social & economic order<\/strong>.\u2019 This ee<\/em><\/strong> Focus<\/em><\/strong> continues Chapter 2 of SBD\u2019s classic The Political Economy of Underdevelopment<\/em>, where he details how at the \u2018birth of capitalism\u2019, the plantation colonies had first depended on white indentured labor, whose conditions were no better than the enslaved Africans they later came to depend on. SBD also suggested the various reasons why these white servants \u2018precluded a uniform standard of treatment\u2019, conditioning the \u2018institutional basis of the plantation economy\u2019, and giving rise to \u2018absentee interests and enslaved labour\u2019. He shows how \u2018employment patterns & their economic roles\u2019 determined the relations between workers, drawing from examples across the Americas (Canada, Puerto Rico, etc), Asia (Malaysia), Africa (East, South & West), and the Pacific (New Zealand), etc. The later division of the world between settler & non-settler colonies<\/strong> were also based on the ability of peoples to resist \u2013 security<\/em><\/strong> being a \u2018a paramount concern\u2019. There was also the strong economic competition from other merchants, peasants & workers. The promotion of a \u2018structure of race relation\u2026 made manual labour degrading\u2019 for whites in some non-settler colonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ee Focus<\/em><\/strong> also continues Gustavus Myers\u2019 History of Tammany Hall<\/em>, about that infamous political machinery parading as a charity<\/em><\/strong>, as many NGOs do today. Myers here describes the inevitable concentration of power in one or a few individuals, and the art of \u2018bossing\u2019, recruiting compliant politicians, officials and workers while pretending to be honest and efficient. Denouncing \u2018corruption, extravagance and waste\u2019, while demanding kickbacks for contracts to supply municipal necessities such as water, roads & railways. Yet the age of kings is long over, as modern \u2018princes\u2019 operate through corporate boards or political vanguard parties, albeit through tight cadre networks\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contents:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NPP Leaders are Anti-Western & Marxist: So says the USA<\/a><\/blockquote>