Is China A Threat To Our Island & The Indian Ocean Region? 

By Sanja De Silva Jayatilleka –February 25, 2017

Sanja De Silva Jayatilleka

While two high level delegations from Beijing were visiting Colombo it was strange indeed to see a full page article in the Daily News of 22 Feb 2017 (“Tripartite Agreement with India, Japan Mooted”, p 4), suggesting that China might well be a threat to Sri Lanka, and Sri Lanka would do well to align with India and Japan to counter this threat. That it was a state-run newspaper that published it while the Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister was visiting and a high level delegation from the ruling Communist Party of China had just arrived in the island, makes it all the more disconcerting.

The fact that it was a report of a talk by a Japanese scholar, Dr. Satoru Nagao, Research Fellow at the Tokyo Foundation and the views expressed were his, in no way makes it less serious, especially since the interview was published with a huge picture of an Indian warship running the width of the page and a smaller one of a Chinese submarine illustrating the perceived threat to the Indian Ocean region. Interestingly, the report itself was by a young American researcher based in Asia, Sam Bresnick. What was it doing so prominently featured in the Sri Lankan state’s English language flagship newspaper the Daily News on that particular day?

From where I am seated, as a citizen of Sri Lanka, China has been a friend for hundreds of years, and has never posed a threat to our country. In fact, in the face of the most dangerous of threat to the very existence of this island as one country, China came through for us when some of our other friends were unable to, probably due to valid electoral considerations of their own.

Furthermore, it doesn’t need me to reiterate that our post-war development would not have been possible without China’s generosity. Within the space of a few years, ours was one of the fastest growing economies in Asia, thanks to our political leadership of the day taking advantage of the development diplomacy of China. The infrastructure that all sectors of the economy had longed for became a magnificent reality and growth took a markedly upward turn.

It is worrying in the extreme, this manifest ambivalence on the part of the current government (or on the part of a part of this government) towards Chinese assistance to Sri Lanka, this article in the official Daily News being a symptom of it. It was during the general election campaign that the UNP swore to stop the Port City Project which soon put the new government and the gullible public in all sorts of economic difficulties having had to pay compensation for delaying the project. How is it that our representatives treat with such scant regard arguably the most economically indispensable country in the world, which has hundreds of projects of infrastructure development all over the globe and daily earns the gratitude of many countries and their citizens, while we who need it desperately, feel we can play fast and loose with China?

The fiasco with the Mattala airport is a case in point. Was it wise for our Prime Minister to stuff the newly completed international airport with paddy for all the world to see? Which airline would choose to schedule that particular airport for regular flights? It has now been proven invaluable during repairs to the Katunayake airport, so the paddy has been shifted to accommodate the diverted flights.

What is it with this government, that it treats our economy and our infrastructure as some joke? Whichever party completed the infrastructure projects, they are national assets and should at least be treated with more respect– and the new government’s task was to use them to bring in more revenue as quickly as possible.

For an ancient civilization with a well-known and finely developed sense of proper behavior forming part of their Confucian world-outlook, it must be bewildering for China to see one blunder after another in Sri Lanka’s recent dealings with it. One can only hope that the Chinese realize from their daily encounters with the general public that this government’s behavior does not represent either the attitude, the feelings, or the sense of gratitude of the vast majority of the country’s populace towards China which has been a firm and unstinting friend through the ages.

Sri Lanka also has a very warm relationship with Japan. The Japanese have been supportive throughout the war years, often intervening at our request to negotiate a peaceful settlement, being an honest negotiator without any hidden agenda or vested interest. They have been an economic partner and a supportive Asian power in multilateral fora, playing a crucial role in Sri Lanka’s affairs as a trusted friend for many decades. The Sri Lankan public is familiar with many projects of collaboration with Japan and value the Japanese notion of honor. However, to date, I cannot recall any kind of collaboration undertaken with Japan as a deterrent or bulwark against a third party. I am open to correction since I am not privy to the thinking behind government to government cooperation, but I can’t recall any report at all of such an alliance, specifically for the purpose of power-balancing allegedly to ensure the security of the region.

The prominent article in the Daily News says in its very first paragraph that the visiting scholar Dr. Satoru “urges Sri Lanka to forge stronger ties with India and regional powers like Japan to balance its relationship with the increasingly aggressive China.” While it may be perfectly understandable, if regrettable, for countries in the South China Sea region to regard each other with suspicion and caution, Sri Lanka does not regard, nor sees any reason to regard China in that light. Any effort to include Sri Lanka as some pawn in a regional power contestation is not in its national interest, since it has neither the size nor the riches to benefit from such a role.

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