{"id":61664,"date":"2016-12-20T15:03:29","date_gmt":"2016-12-20T22:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=61664"},"modified":"2016-12-20T15:03:29","modified_gmt":"2016-12-20T22:03:29","slug":"india-in-quandary-over-new-govts-relationship-with-china-gotabhaya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/12\/20\/india-in-quandary-over-new-govts-relationship-with-china-gotabhaya\/","title":{"rendered":"India in quandary over new govt\u2019s relationship with China – Gotabhaya"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Shamindra Ferdinando\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday told The Island that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was certainly in a quandary over the Maithripala Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration\u2019s partnership with China.<\/p>\n

India had strongly opposed to the previous government\u2019s relationship with China and thrown its weight behind the Opposition at the last presidential polls in January 2015, Rajapaksa said.<\/p>\n

The former Defence Secretary said India couldn\u2019t be happy that the government was going ahead with all Chinese projects launched during the previous administration.<\/p>\n

Responding to a query, Rajapaksa asserted that India must be regretting its decision to back the then UNP-led Opposition at the presidential polls.<\/p>\n

The former Defence Secretary said India\u2019s former National Security Advisor (NSA) Shivshankar Menon, in his recently released memoirs, Choices: Inside the Making of India\u2019s Foreign Policy had acknowledged the understanding between the previous government and India during the war and post-conflict period. Menon\u2019s successor Ajit Doval had taken an entirely different stand, Rajapaksa said, adding that India\u2019s stand on Sri Lanka\u2019s relationship was explained twice.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa said India called for the cancellation of USD 1.4 bn Chinese flagship project Colombo Port City. In addition to that demand which Rajapaksa said was very unfair, India demanded that Sri Lanka take over Colombo International Container Terminals Limited (CICT), a joint venture between China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited (CMPH) and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).<\/p>\n

CMPH holds 85% of the partnership whilst the balance 15% is being held by SLPA.<\/p>\n

Rajapaksa quoted Doval as having told him that India wanted all Chinese funded infrastructure projects stopped and for Sri Lanka to have full control of the Hambantota port. Rajapaksa quoted Doval as having said: “Sri Lanka is a small country, you don\u2019t need such development projects.”<\/p>\n

The former Defence Secretary pointed out that India hadn\u2019t been able to achieve its objectives by regime change. After antagonizing China immediately after capturing power in January 2015, the new administration had been bending backwards to appease the Chinese, Rajapaksa said. “The Port City project is underway,” Rajapaksa said, underscoring the recently concluded agreement between CCPH and the SLPA to run the Hambantota port as evidence of the strong relationship. The new agreement envisaged 80 per cent of the Hambantota port to the CMPH, he said, adding that the Chinese already operated Colombo\u2019s third container terminal with a 2.4 mn TEUs capacity under the Colombo South Harbour expansion project.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, former External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris yesterday expressed serious concern over the new government modifying an agreement between Sri Lanka and China regarding Hambantota development project. Declaring that handing over 15,000 acres of land at one go to the Chinese instead 750 acres as originally planned wasn\u2019t acceptable, Prof. Peiris described the project as a country within a country.<\/p>\n

Addressing the media at Punchi Borella, Prof. Peiris said that during a recent visit to China by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, he had urged the Chinese not to modify the project. Prof. Peiris, who had been present at talks between the former President and the Chinese explained their efforts to discourage the investors not to expand the project.<\/p>\n

Prof. Peiris said that successive governments had established special zones such as Katunayake and Biyagama Export Processing Zones without causing unnecessary complications.<\/p>\n

Responding to a recent statement attributed to State Minister Range Bandara, Prof. Peiris emphasized that the former President hadn\u2019t discussed a change of government or formation of new administration during his week long visit to China. The former President represented Sri Lanka\u2019s interests and explored ways and means of promoting the country, prof. Peiris said. “The former President will not engage in party politics during overseas visits.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Shamindra Ferdinando\u00a0Courtesy The Island Former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa yesterday told The Island that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was certainly in a quandary over the Maithripala Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration\u2019s partnership with China. India had strongly opposed to the previous government\u2019s relationship with China and thrown its weight behind the Opposition at the last presidential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}