{"id":95472,"date":"2019-11-21T16:10:46","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T23:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95472"},"modified":"2019-11-21T16:10:46","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T23:10:46","slug":"sri-lanka-india-looking-to-mend-fences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/21\/sri-lanka-india-looking-to-mend-fences\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka, India looking to ‘Mend Fences’"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ashok Dixit Courtesy Ceylon Today<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The hard-fought seventh Presidential election in Sri Lanka has just ended with a convincing victory for former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. His achievement in securing over 52 per cent of the votes cast in the face of reservations expressed by minorities in that island-nation must be seen as an important development for South Asia and the extended Indo-Pacific region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


We now hear that his first State visit after formally assuming office on 18 November will be to India on 29 November. India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has just concluded an unannounced two-day visit to Colombo (on Monday and Tuesday) to have what he described as a ‘warm meeting’ with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to convey a message of ‘partnership for shared peace, progress, prosperity and security’ with New Delhi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Recent observations appearing in the public domain suggest that all four of the above-mentioned factors could pose a significant diplomatic and strategic challenge for both countries given the past Rajapaksa regime’s pronounced tilt towards China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


There is currently a view that Sunday’s Presidential election result in Sri Lanka will most certainly have a bearing on the presence of both India and China in the Indian Ocean region, especially in the context of Beijing, which has been making impactful inroads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Editorials appearing in various Indian media through the week seem to be somewhat cautious and sceptical. One such editorial in an Indian daily said: “It is possible that Rajapaksa would like to change course and build better relations with India.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n


However, it further goes on to say: “New Delhi must prepare for a pro-China tilt in Colombo, some spillover of Lanka’s Tamil politics to Tamil Nadu\u00e2\u0080\u00a6. India must act as a constructive partner in the face of the likelihood of continued political tussle in Sri Lanka till the November 2020 (Parliamentary) elections.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n


I spoke with two former Indian diplomats – K.P. Fabian and G. Parthasarathy – recently on their assessment of the election result in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Ambassador Fabian said: “India will have to play its cards carefully given Sri Lanka’s closeness to China in the recent past.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n


“(Gotabaya) Rajapaksa has won primarily because of the majoritarian Sinhala vote bank and the Buddhist clergy. Premadasa, on the other hand, has secured more votes from the 15 per cent Tamil and 10 per cent Muslim communities in Sri Lanka,” he stated further, adding “Long term, Sri Lanka will have to maintain good relations with its immediate neighbours.”
Ambassador Parthasarathy reiterated New Delhi’s long-held view that the China factor is deeply ingrained in Sri Lanka’s political psyche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The election result could see India’s relationships changing not only with Sri Lanka, but also with Myanmar, the other neighbouring country scheduled to hold elections in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


He said both countries have an “intrusive and less-than-healthy Chinese presence” and “the Chinese take an above-normal interest in the domestic politics of both these countries.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n


He also felt that Sri Lanka and the Rajapaksa family personally would continue to be under international scrutiny for alleged serious human rights violations committed during the civil war between Government troops and the LTTE in the 1980s and 1990s. If past precedent is anything to go by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa would continue to receive support from Beijing, he maintained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


These are challenging and difficult times for South Asia and the extended Indo-Pacific region. The Indian Government has wisely gone ahead with an outreach towards Colombo and the new President, but will reiterate clear red lines that it would not like to see being crossed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


As one editorial said earlier this week, New Delhi would welcome Colombo engaging with Beijing so long as it does not “affect Indian security interests.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Malaysia – India<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malaysia is showing increasing interest in procuring India’s Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas. Kuala Lumpur recently put out a tender for supply of 36 new light combat aircraft and if it reaches an agreement with New Delhi, it will be the first foreign sale undertaken by the Indian Government-owned aerospace and defence company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL).<\/p>\n\n\n\n


India’s Tejas is competing with China’s JF-17, South Korea’s T-50 Golden Eagle, Russia’s YAK-130, BAE Systems’ armed Hawk and Sweden’s Gripen.
There is a concern, however, that the proposed deal may not take off due to diplomatic and trade ties between both countries currently being strained over Kuala Lumpur’s recent negative remarks on New Delhi’s move to change the special quasi-autonomous status of the former State of Jammu and Kashmir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China and Bangladesh<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

China and Bangladesh continue to seek ways to improve bilateral trade ties. Both Governments have just inked a $72 million joint venture to implement a mega water project in the emerging smart city township of Purbachal on the outskirts of Dhaka in phases by 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The joint venture between the Chinese United Water Corporation and Delcot Water Limited of Bangladesh is the first Public Private Partnership (PPP) water sector project in Bangladesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The over 6,000-acre Purbachal is the biggest planned township coming up to Dhaka’s north-east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


China is already implementing $10 billion worth of infrastructure projects in Bangladesh. Apart from Purbachal, the other major projects coming up are a Chinese Economic and Industrial Zone, the Payra Power Plant, the 8th China Bangladesh Friendship Bridge and the International Exhibition Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China and Afghanistan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said Beijing is keeping all communication lines open for holding the intra-Afghan talks in China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


He said China supports comprehensive and inclusive “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned” peace reconciliation processes and is willing to provide a platform for dialogue and exchanges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


(Ashok Dixit is a New Delhi-based media consultant and a former senior editor with two of India’s leading multi-media news agencies ANI and IANS. He is also the son of India’s former National Security Advisor and Foreign Secretary J.N. Dixit)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ashok Dixit Courtesy Ceylon Today The hard-fought seventh Presidential election in Sri Lanka has just ended with a convincing victory for former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. His achievement in securing over 52 per cent of the votes cast in the face of reservations expressed by minorities in that island-nation must be seen as an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95472","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=95472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}