A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
A Brief Colonial History Of Ceylon(SriLanka)
Sri Lanka: One Island Two Nations
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Thiranjala Weerasinghe sj.- One Island Two Nations
?????????????????????????????????????????????????Thursday, May 25, 2017
Setback in Sri Lanka for China’s silk road
Author: Dániel Balázs, Tongji University-24 May 2017
China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) sets the bar high. It
strives to connect Asia, Africa and Europe with the aim of achieving
mutual development. Sri Lanka, with its valuable geographic position in
the heart of the Indian Ocean, is a crucial participant in Beijing’s
newest endeavor.
But China–Sri Lanka ties seemed to reach a low point when in January 2017 violent protests erupted in
which people expressed opposition to an industrial zone project funded
by Beijing. This turbulent and unpredictable bilateral engagement
provides China a valuable lesson for building the Belt and Road.
China tries its best to convince the rest of the world that it is a
fundamentally different kind of great power. This idea is partly
underpinned by the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’
that guided China’s post-1949 foreign policy. One of the core concepts
of this engagement is non-interference with other countries’ internal
affairs. A further pillar of China’s self-perception of being a benign
great power is ‘win-win’ cooperation that is beneficial for all partners.
An archetypical manifestation of this thinking is the BRI. China’s
proposal entails deepened financial, political, infrastructural,
commercial and cultural ties between Beijing and the more than 60 other
participants. The main idea is that China shares the fruit of its
development for the sake of mutual progress. According to the official
narrative, the BRI is not a geopolitical tool to extend Beijing’s influence and everybody is a winner under the novel cooperation framework.
Against this background, it is hard to believe that anything could go
wrong. Yet in Sri Lanka — one of the BRI’s flagship participants —
public discontent erupted in a violent protest. The case of Sino–Sri
Lankan relations proves that if non-interference equates to an ignorance
of domestic dynamics, then China’s hands-off foreign policy can cause
more harm than good.
In order to make sense of the recent developments in China–Sri Lanka
ties, one has to take a step back and look at the aftermath of the
nearly three decades long Eelam War. The bloody conflict left Sri Lanka
in ruins, forcing the little island nation to rely on external actors to
rebuild itself. Sri Lanka’s post-civil war history has been chiefly
shaped by the duality of the Beijing and Washington Consensus. While
Washington’s helping hand comes with rigid conditionality, Chinese aid and investments seem to come with no strings attached.
In 2009, the civil war came to a brutal end at the hands of Mahinda
Rajapaksa who subsequently became the subject of allegations of human
rights violations, corruption and nepotism. Given its dubious
reputation, the Rajapaksa regime quickly ran out of friends and the
Beijing Consensus was a convenient and reliable source of funds.
China–Sri Lanka relations reached new heights. Chinese signature projects such as the Mattala airport, Hambantota port and Colombo port city were built with billions of dollars of Chinese funds.
This engagement, also known as the ‘Colombo Consensus’,
was indeed a win-win cooperation. Rajapaksa could rely on the steady
flow of Chinese money to solidify his power and Beijing gained access to
one of the most valuable geostrategic positions in the Indian Ocean.
All of this led observers to believe that Rajapaksa had cemented his
power for a very long time to come. Yet such assumptions proved wrong.
In a surprising triumph of democracy, Maithripala Sirisena, a former
ally of Rajapaksa, gained power and became the new President of Sri
Lanka in January 2015. The novel leader’s promises included a revision
of ill-famed Chinese projects, including the Colombo Port City project, a massive initiative costing more than a billion dollars.
But it is hard to keep such promises once one is bound by legal contracts. Sri Lankan debt exceeds US$60
billion, more than 10 percent of it owed to the Chinese. Beijing was
irked by the new government’s attitude and played hard during
negotiations over the Hambantota Port project, squeezing out a deal that
would have given China Merchants Port Holdings 80 per cent of the
stakes in the project and control over the adjacent industrial zone
covering 15,000 acres of land.
Now Beijing’s strongman approach has backfired. The new conditions of the Hambantota project met strong opposition from the Sri Lankan public. As a result, new negotiations started that decreased China’s stake by approximately 20 per cent.
The case of Sri Lanka leaves Beijing with one key takeaway that is worth
pondering as it embarks on an initiative that covers the majority of
the planet. While there is nothing wrong with the idea of not meddling
with other countries’ internal affairs, it does not mean that Beijing
should be insensitive toward the domestic dynamics of its partners.
Simply channeling exorbitant amounts of money into other countries is
not going to be enough for realising the New Silk Roads. The
implementation of the initiative calls for something more —
understanding and adapting to the internal processes of BRI
participants.
Beijing has already burnt itself in Myanmar,
Thailand and Laos, where the public is becoming hostile to Chinese
projects. Like a chain, the Belt and Road is as strong as its weakest
link and public perceptions toward China can become an existential issue
for Beijing’s ambitious initiative.
Dániel Balázs is a recent graduate of International Relations at
Tongji University in Shanghai. The views expressed are his own and do
not represent the views of his affiliated institution.