{"id":64939,"date":"2017-04-05T14:27:40","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T21:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=64939"},"modified":"2017-04-05T14:27:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T21:27:40","slug":"shashi-tharoor-flags-indias-concerns-over-chinese-presence-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/04\/05\/shashi-tharoor-flags-indias-concerns-over-chinese-presence-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"Shashi Tharoor flags India\u2019s concerns over Chinese presence in Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meera Srinivasan<\/a>\u00a0Courtesy The Hindu<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The former Union Minister was speaking at the launch of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s political biography, authored by Dinesh Weerakody, in Colombo.<\/p>\n

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Congress MP and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor flagged India\u2019s concerns over China\u2019s presence in Sri Lanka, pointing to military intervention in the guise of trade\u201d even in the earlier avatar of China\u2019s Silk Road initiative.<\/p>\n

He was speaking at the launch of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s political biography, authored by Dinesh Weerakody, in Colombo on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Referring to Chinese admiral Zheng He\u2019s explorations in 15th century, Mr. Tharoor said, they were not just initiatives to promote trade, but also direct military intervention under the pretext of ushering in a harmonious world order under China\u2019s emperor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some in India wondered whether China\u2019s interest in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) undermines India\u2019s own historical links and cultural networks built over generations and centuries, said the former Minister of State for External Affairs, echoing South Block\u2019s apparent preoccupation with Beijing\u2019s growing presence in the region.<\/p>\n

Batting for Indian private sector firms seeking to enter the Sri Lankan market, Mr. Tharoor said, many of them voiced concern over the extraordinary stringency\u201d of Sri Lanka\u2019s Environment Impact Assessment regulations, as applied to Indian firms. Some of the Indian executives say with feeling that Chinese companies don\u2019t face as many environmental hurdles as Indian companies do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

India is keen that the island nation reaches a political settlement keeping in line with values enshrined in the Sri Lankan Constitution and India\u2019s Constitution which, the former U.N. Under-Secretary General\u00a0said, was drafted by people who too in their time grappled with blood, violence and mass displacement at the time of partition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assuring India in his response, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said, We see a lot of opportunities in the region, the wealth of which helped the West in the past. It is now time for us to ensure we can rebuild the Indian Ocean and strengthen ourselves. There is much more scope for us to work together with India.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reinstating his commitment to the Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) that India and Sri Lanka are likely sign later this year, the Prime Minister said the countries of the Bay of Bengal, along with the five southern States of India, and Sri Lanka could focus on an economy larger than a trillion dollars in value.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meera Srinivasan\u00a0Courtesy The Hindu The former Union Minister was speaking at the launch of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s political biography, authored by Dinesh Weerakody, in Colombo. Congress MP and former Union Minister Shashi Tharoor flagged India\u2019s concerns over China\u2019s presence in Sri Lanka, pointing to military intervention in the guise of trade\u201d even in the […]<\/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-64939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64939","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=64939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64939\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}