{"id":65400,"date":"2017-04-21T15:39:27","date_gmt":"2017-04-21T22:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=65400"},"modified":"2017-04-21T15:39:41","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T22:39:41","slug":"new-silk-road-or-new-great-game-india-developing-new-sri-lanka-port-to-combat-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/04\/21\/new-silk-road-or-new-great-game-india-developing-new-sri-lanka-port-to-combat-china\/","title":{"rendered":"New Silk Road Or New Great Game? India Developing New Sri Lanka Port To Combat China"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wade Shepard<\/a> , \u00a0<\/span>CONTRIBUTOR\u00a0Courtesy \u00a0Forbes<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
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\u00a0Hambantota Port is set to go to China with an impending deal that will see China Merchants take an 80% share for a specified amount of years. \u00a0AFP PHOTO \/ LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

As regional powers like China, Russia, Japan, and India vie for political and economic position throughout the eastern realms of Eurasia, many of the less powerful countries caught in the middle are employing what could be called a \u2018multi-vector strategy\u2019 as they engage openly with multiple suitors in an attempt to balance out their respective influences \u2014 and ultimately bringing in more investment, financing, and development for themselves.<\/p>\n

It is a move pioneered, dubbed, and popularized by Kazakhstan \u2014 a country which sits right between Russia, China, South Asia, and Europe \u2014 in the era following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Rather than being a puppet state of Russia, Kazakhstan began opening itself up to other international powers, bringing in billions in investment and a higher degree of strategic autonomy in the process.<\/p>\n

As China advances its program of increased internationalism \u2014 as delivered via its Belt and Road initiative \u2014 the country has rapidly become a major political and economic power pushing infrastructure development throughout Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. More than any other, this new geopolitical player has shaken up the traditional layout of political and economic alliances, creating the counterbalance necessary for more less powerful countries to employ \u2018multi-vector strategies\u2019 of their own.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Sri Lanka is such a country. Traditionally aligned with India and the West, this position may have continued ad infinitum if it weren\u2019t for the repercussions that came as a result of how Sri Lanka ended its decades-long civil war against the Tamil Tigers. Dubbed war crimes, the Sri Lankan government was called up before the UN Human Rights council in 2009, and the EU and US subsequently shut down most economic concessions and sources of aid<\/a>\u00a0to demonstrated their disapproval for the alleged abuses.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This resulted in a geopolitical backfire of perhaps unprecedented proportions. Instead of bringing Sri Lanka to submission, the country simply pivoted to China, who was more than willing to help out\u201d the suddenly politically and economically hamstrung nation. In the years that followed, China gave Sri Lanka $37 million in military aid, over $8 billion in loans, and the drive to go ahead with multiple Chinese-led mega-projects, such as Colombo Financial City<\/a> \u2014 a $1.4 billion, 269-hectare new financial center \u2014 and the Hambantota developments<\/a>, which include a giant deep sea port<\/a>, an international airport<\/a>, a cricket stadium, a conference hall, and an impending 15,000-acre, million-worker industrial zone<\/a>, basically turning the country into a Chinese outpost of progress.<\/p>\n

This sheer pivot to China made India feel more than a little ill at ease. A rising global economic and military power was suddenly firmly entrenched on their doorstep, and beyond weightless political posturing they really had no answer for it. It soon became clear that if India was to have any real influence on the island nation to the southeast that they were going to have to jump in, show the money, and build something.<\/p>\n

Which has led to this:<\/p>\n

According to diplomatic sources,\u201d<\/a> Sri Lanka and India are expected to sign an agreement during PM Narendra Modi\u2019s next visit to Colombo to develop Trincomalee port in the northeast of Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wade Shepard , \u00a0CONTRIBUTOR\u00a0Courtesy \u00a0Forbes \u00a0Hambantota Port is set to go to China with an impending deal that will see China Merchants take an 80% share for a specified amount of years. \u00a0AFP PHOTO \/ LAKRUWAN WANNIARACHCHI As regional powers like China, Russia, Japan, and India vie for political and economic position throughout the eastern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65400","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=65400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}