{"id":62606,"date":"2017-01-22T13:01:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-22T20:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=62606"},"modified":"2017-01-22T13:01:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-22T20:01:00","slug":"india-tells-sri-lanka-you-can-take-your-port-and-shove-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/01\/22\/india-tells-sri-lanka-you-can-take-your-port-and-shove-it\/","title":{"rendered":"India Tells Sri Lanka: You Can Take Your Port And Shove It"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"contrib-byline-author\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><a class=\"link preload-hidden ng-binding\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/wadeshepard\/\" target=\"_self\">Wade Shepard<\/a> <span class=\"author-comma preload-hidden ng-scope\">, \u00a0<\/span><span class=\"ng-binding ng-scope\">CONTRIBUTOR\u00a0Courtesy Forbes.com<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Last Wednesday, January 18th, Sri Lanka&#8217;s minister for regional development, Sarath Fonseka, told journalists at a conference in New Delhi that terms were being discussed to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.maritime-executive.com\/article\/sri-lanka-and-india-enter-port-development-talks\" target=\"_blank\">give Sri Lanka\u2019s northeastern Trincomalee port to India<\/a>. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe reportedly vouched for the veracity of the remarks on the sidelines of Davos. But by Friday <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newindianexpress.com\/world\/2017\/jan\/20\/india-denies-talks-are-on-to-take-over-development-of-sri-lankas-trincomalee-port-1561714.html\" target=\"_blank\">India was denying them<\/a>, stating that they had no interest in taking on a fledgling port that wouldn&#8217;t be profitable for a very long time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The offer of Trincomalee port to India was a move designed to offset India\u2019s very outspoken reservations about the amount of Chinese economic and political power that is being consolidated right off their coastlines. To salve India\u2019s fears that some of these Chinese projects could someday have military implications, Sri Lanka attests that they are not partial to any one country in particular when it comes to investment and are willing to do business with a wide array of potential suitors \u2014 be they from India, the USA, Japan, Singapore, or China. India was never overtly excluded from any major Chinese-led development project in Sri Lanka, and for some, such as Colombo Financial City, the Hambantota port, and the projected Hambantota industrial zone, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/wadeshepard\/2016\/10\/11\/china-and-india-to-build-colombo-financial-city-together\/\" target=\"_self\">they have actually been invited in<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While India has shown inclinations to invest large amounts of money in Sri Lanka \u2014 just a few months ago India\u2019s Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that they would be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.atimes.com\/article\/china-invites-india-join-sri-lanka-offshore-city-project\/\" target=\"_blank\">pumping $2 billion into Sri Lankan infrastructure development<\/a> \u2014 they haven\u2019t exactly jumped right in to make good on this offer. India has its own infrastructure challenges at home, they have a dire need to modernize their own ports, and taking on Sri Lanka&#8217;s port at Trincomalee does not appear to be on their near-term to-do list.<\/p>\n<p>Full Report<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/wadeshepard\/2017\/01\/21\/india-tells-sri-lanka-take-your-trincomalee-deep-sea-port-and-shove-it\/#60f09ee6e6e7\">http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/wadeshepard\/2017\/01\/21\/india-tells-sri-lanka-take-your-trincomalee-deep-sea-port-and-shove-it\/#60f09ee6e6e7<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wade Shepard , \u00a0CONTRIBUTOR\u00a0Courtesy Forbes.com Last Wednesday, January 18th, Sri Lanka&#8217;s minister for regional development, Sarath Fonseka, told journalists at a conference in New Delhi that terms were being discussed to give Sri Lanka\u2019s northeastern Trincomalee port to India. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe reportedly vouched for the veracity of the remarks on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62606","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=62606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}