{"id":97630,"date":"2020-01-11T23:07:55","date_gmt":"2020-01-12T05:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=97630"},"modified":"2020-01-11T16:01:45","modified_gmt":"2020-01-11T23:01:45","slug":"top-us-chinese-and-russian-foreign-affairs-personnel-in-sri-lanka-on-january-13-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/11\/top-us-chinese-and-russian-foreign-affairs-personnel-in-sri-lanka-on-january-13-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Top US, Chinese and Russian Foreign Affairs Personnel in Sri Lanka on January 13, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

It cannot be\na bigger powerplay than this. Very senior representatives of all three\nsuperpowers will be in Sri Lanka on the same date obviously to push Sri Lanka\nto comply with their foreign policy agendas. Needless to say, they rival each\nother. US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central\nAsian Affairs Alice Wells, Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs Wang Yi and\nRussian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov will be visiting Sri Lanka\nnext Monday the 13th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their visit\nis crucial given the happenings around Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alice Wells\nof USA is also visiting India and Pakistan but not before Sri Lanka. That shows\nthe significance of the Lankan trip. According to the US State Department, she\nwill be Lankan to advance the US-India strategic global partnership following\nthe success of their Ministerial Dialogue in December. This is a series of\nmilitary deals between USA and India. These deals are the following.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.      \nUS-India\nMajor Defence Partnership (MDP) – to expand military-to-military cooperation\nand improve the defence and security partnership in the Indian Ocean region<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.      \nAn\nInformation Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region including US military\nliaison officer at the Centre to monitor maritime security across the region<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3.      \nCommunications\nCompatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) for the installation of secure\ncommunication capabilities between the US and Indian militaries<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.      \nCOMCASA \u2013 to\nenable open communication between US and Indian militaries and sharing of\ninformation without restrictions<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5.      \nBasic\nExchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) – geospatial and GPS\ninformation-sharing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6.      \nIndustrial\nSecurity Annex (ISA) – to exchange classified military information between the\nUS and Indian defense industries<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are\nhuge military developments that will surely push India away from its sham\nnon-aligned position into the lap of USA. The purpose of the visit is to bring\nSri Lanka also into the fold under India. This is very similar to the British\nstrategy for Ceylon from 1833 to 1924. USA is just following it. MCC will be a\nkey discussion point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinese and\nRussian foreign ministers are obviously aware of this and they will focus on\ndiscouraging Sri Lanka from falling into this trap. However, if Sri Lanka goes\nwith US and Indian demands, China and Russia will be compelled to take it tough\nwith Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the\nisland nation further veers into the US military camp, China and Russia will\nhave no option than to secure a land mass within the island that goes with\nthem. It means division of the island of Sri Lanka with opposing political and\nstrategic views. Sri Lanka\u2019s northern and eastern provinces and the coastal\nbelt from the northern province south to Beruwala are occupied by pro-US and\npro-Indian populations whereas the rest support non-alignment. These are the\nisland\u2019s political and strategic fault lines. The first piece is what USA and\nIndia are after. It is a clear case of matching supply and demand, both push\nand pull factors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to withstand\nall three world superpowers, Sri Lanka\u2019s leadership needs vision, courage and\nknowledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara It cannot be a bigger powerplay than this. Very senior representatives of all three superpowers will be in Sri Lanka on the same date obviously to push Sri Lanka to comply with their foreign policy agendas. Needless to say, they rival each other. US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97630","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=97630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97630\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}