{"id":76810,"date":"2018-04-26T03:30:36","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T10:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=76810"},"modified":"2018-04-26T03:30:36","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T10:30:36","slug":"why-colombo-remains-a-challenge-for-new-delhi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/04\/26\/why-colombo-remains-a-challenge-for-new-delhi\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Colombo remains a challenge for New Delhi"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0ANA PARARAJASINGHAM<\/a><\/span>\u00a0Courtesy Asia Times<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Former Sri Lankan president\u00a0Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s resounding performance at the local-council elections in early February has prompted the observation that\u00a0Rajapaksa is back in politics<\/a>\u00a0and poised to regain political power. This is a blow to the unity\u201d government that replaced the Rajapaksa regime in January 2015.<\/p>\n

The regime change that resulted in the formation of a unity\u201d government came about when former Rajapaksa loyalists joined the opposition right-leaning United National Party (UNP). The unity\u201d government suffered its first setback when a\u00a0Rajapaksa-backed<\/a>\u00a0no-confidence motion was made against Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe on\u00a0 April 4, and 16 members of the unity\u201d government voted for the motion.<\/p>\n

Although the prime minister survived the motion, the government was weakened, with those\u00a016 members who voted in favor of the no-confidence motion<\/a>\u00a0crossing the floor and taking their seats in the opposition benches.<\/p>\n

Regime change<\/h3>\n

The regime change was welcomed by New Delhi and Washington.\u00a0On\u00a0 January 9, 2015<\/a>, even before the formal announcement of the election result, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first foreign leader to call and congratulate the new president, Maithripala\u00a0Sirisena, on his victory.<\/p>\n

On the eve of the election<\/a>, US secretary of state\u00a0John Kerry had telephoned Rajapaksa to insist that he conduct a free and fair election\u201d and ensure a peaceful\u201d handover of power if Sirisena won the ballot. The high-level involvement by Washington in Sri Lanka\u2019s presidential election implied that US interests were at stake.<\/p>\n

Both Washington and New Delhi had found the increasing influence of China over Sri Lanka under the Rajapaksa government to be a threat to their own influence in the strategically significant island nation.<\/p>\n

Since late 2009, Washington had been deeply worried about Sri Lanka\u2019s drift toward China. A December 2009 US Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, Sri Lanka: Re-charting US Strategy after the War,\u201d had noted that Sri Lanka\u2019s strategic drift toward China would have consequences for US interests in the region and that the United States could not afford to \u2018\u2018lose\u2019\u2019 Sri Lanka. It called for increasing US leverage vis-a-vis Sri Lanka by adopting a multifaceted, broader and more robust approach to secure US interests.<\/p>\n

New Delhi became particularly concerned after Colombo,\u00a0brushing aside India\u2019s concerns<\/a>, permitted two Chinese submarines to dock in Colombo within a space of seven weeks in late 2014.<\/p>\n

As such, Washington and New Delhi had common grounds to welcome a change of government in Sri Lanka. Indeed, it has been suggested with some justification that New Delhi with Washington\u2019s backing had played an active role in the regime change.<\/p>\n

Reports from Colombo<\/a>\u00a0accused the chief of India\u2019s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), K Ilango, of helping the opposition oust Rajapaksa as president. In the run-up to the presidential election, Ilango was transferred. In an\u00a0interview given to an Indian journalist,<\/a>Rajapaksa accused the West of working with RAW to oust him.<\/p>\n

The regime change came about when Maithiripala Sirisena, a senior member of the Rajapaksa government, chose to defect with some members of his own party and challenge Rajapaksa at the presidential election of 2015. Although Sirisena won the election, he was unable to garner a majority of the Sinhala votes; he won because the Tamils and Muslims voted for him.<\/p>\n

The Tamils had suffered immensely throughout Rajapaksa\u2019s rule, and later in his term, Muslims were subjected to state-condoned violence. Tamils voted for Sirisena for various reasons. Some believed that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had reached an understanding with Sirisena to implement a new constitution permitting self-rule for the Tamil-dominated northeast, while others were persuaded by Sirsena\u2019s promise to conduct\u00a0an open inquiry into war-crimes allegations<\/a>, and many who had lived under oppressive conditions for almost six years believed that a new administration would be an improvement.<\/p>\n

Heavy voter turnout in the Tamil-majority areas of Sri Lanka has also been\u00a0interpreted as a negative vote<\/a>\u00a0cast against Rajapaksa. But there is no gainsaying that the challenge to oust Rajapaksa succeeded mainly because the Tamils voted for Sirisena.<\/p>\n

Re-embrace of China<\/h3>\n

The regime change soon proved to be illusory for all those who had hoped to benefit. No attempt was made to address Tamil grievances. Colombo, having initially sought to balance its relationship with New Delhi and Beijing, soon began to tilt once again toward Beijing.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s re-embrace of China is attributable to two factors. The first is\u00a0China\u2019s debt-trap diplomacy<\/a>, which involves providing large loans at commercial rates to countries like Sri Lanka to develop infrastructure projects in strategically significant locations. These loans are often extended in circumstances where the country is in no position to service them, forcing the borrower to lease back the asset to China.<\/p>\n

In Sri Lanka, the management of Hambantota Port, which was built with Chinese loans, is no longer under the direct control of the Sri Lankan state. Its operation is controlled by China via its state-owned China Merchants Ports Holdings, to which Colombo sold a 70% stake as it was unable to meet its loan-repayment obligations.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s re-embrace of China was also driven by another factor: the Sinhalese fear of India\u2019s interventionist agenda.<\/p>\n

Ever since Sri Lanka became independent, its foreign policy has been driven by this fear of its giant neighbor. It is this perception about New Delhi that caused Sri Lanka to sign defense agreements permitting Britain the use of naval and air bases in Trincomalee immediately upon independence; take up a pro-Pakistani position during India\u2019s war against Pakistan in 1971; seek help from countries inimical to India during the early stages of the civil war; and surreptitiously involve China during the final phase of the war without\u00a0letting India know.<\/a><\/p>\n

As far as Colombo is concerned, irrespective of the government in power, its foreign policy has always been underpinned by a compulsion to counter Indian influence.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s response<\/h3>\n

Undeterred, New Delhi has tried to bring Colombo within its own sphere of influence either through coercion, as\u00a0Indira Gandhi<\/a>\u00a0did by arming Tamil rebels to exert pressure or through an alliance, or as theIndian government<\/a>\u00a0under Manmohan Singh attempted by helping Colombo defeat the Tamil rebels.<\/p>\n

The latest attempt by the Indian government to bring Colombo within its orbit through regime change\u201d failed because New Delhi failed to grasp that the majority-Sinhala nation harbors strong reservations and\u00a0resentment<\/a>\u00a0when it comes to India. These reservations were openly articulated by Dayan Jayatilleka, Sri Lanka\u2019s former envoy to the United Nations, when in April 2015 he declared that\u00a0India is not Lanka\u2019s natural ally.<\/a><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, New Delhi is unlikely to give up on Colombo. But any such effort is bound to clash with Beijing\u2019s own robust agenda to establish its presence in Sri Lanka. Currently,\u00a0Sri Lanka owes China US$8 billion of its total $65 billion of debt<\/a>\u00a0and as such continues to be exposed to China\u2019s debt-trap diplomacy, not to mention Colombo\u2019s own desire to stay out of New Delhi\u2019s orbit.<\/p>\n

For the foreseeable future, Colombo will continue to remain a challenge for New Delhi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0ANA PARARAJASINGHAM\u00a0Courtesy Asia Times Former Sri Lankan president\u00a0Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s resounding performance at the local-council elections in early February has prompted the observation that\u00a0Rajapaksa is back in politics\u00a0and poised to regain political power. This is a blow to the unity\u201d government that replaced the Rajapaksa regime in January 2015. The regime change that resulted 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-76810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76810","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=76810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76810\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}