China’s strategic relations with Sri Lanka
China’s strategic relations with Sri Lanka
WRITTEN BY SAURABH SINGH
5 June 2020
China’s increasing forays in the Indian Ocean Region through its naval assets, have added a brand new dimension to the security dynamic of the region. China’s decades-long economic prosperity has led to expansion of its military and economic influence across South Asia. In recent years, arms supplies and debt funding have proven to be the backbone of Chinese policy in South Asia, especially with regards to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka.
The role of China in Sri Lanka, which has grown remarkably in recent years, is poised to expand geographically further. It all began with Chinese capital and infrastructure funding in building the controversial port in Hambantota, which is additionally often referred as one of the pilot projects by Beijing for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
China’s increased strategic interest and presence on the island of Sri Lanka, close to Indian waters, has been attributed to the legacy of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency, when China was one of the few countries to come forward to support Sri Lanka in its final fight against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2008-09. Whilst other actors such as the United States and European Union were critical of the Sri Lankan Army’s conduct during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War, Beijing provided millions of dollars worth of sophisticated weapons, as well as six F-7 fighter jets to the Sri Lankan Air Force. Moreover, Beijing effectively shielded Sri Lanka from US resolutions at the United Nations Security Counci,l which accused Sri Lanka under Rajapaksa of human rights violations during the final offensive against the LTTE.
Sri Lanka and her major ports now form an intergral part of the Belt and Road Initiative, and may just be the herald of a wider programme of Chinese economic and military projects in the years ahead. A large Chinese footprint may become the new normal in South Asia and the Indian Ocean.
Since then China’s presence in Sri Lanka has only grown and is no secret to anyone, let alone to India the country’s closest neighbour and Beijing’s principal strategic rival for influence. Chinese ships and workers can be openly seen working at a furious pace on major projects such as the Port City project near Colombo. Ken Miller argues in a recent piece that Beijing’s economic power in South Asia via overseas investments has been a deliberate tactic used to help bolster its wider national security interests. Its financial foreign policy rests on two strategies: “accruing foreign currency reserves and sending money abroad in the form of FDI, aid, assistance and loans”.
China’s twin economic and security roles
Sri Lanka is a model for the latter part of this stratagem. Beijing is Sri Lanka’s biggest source of foreign direct investment as well as providing expansion loans for projects such as new Colombo Port Terminal, Hambantota Port, Sri Lanka’s first four-lane expressway, and a new National Theatre, among others. Since 2015, China has poured $15 billion into projects in Sri Lanka. The People’s Liberation Army Naval might even in the near future develop the port into a future logistics base.
The friendship between Sri Lanka and China, which has its origins centuries earlier through the ancient Maritime Silk Road, has often been viewed in the context of geo-political competition with India and other actors in the Indian Ocean and wider Indo-Pacific. Connecting Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, the Hambantota port and Colombo International Container Terminal now serve as strategic assets for China. As part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing now owns an 85% stake in Colombo International Container Terminals – currently the only deep-water terminal at the port.
Sri Lanka is strategically located in the region given its proximity to important sea lanes of communication. The United States Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on Sri Lanka states that “Sri Lanka’s strategic importance to the United States, China and India is viewed by scholars as a key piece in a larger geo-political dynamics”. China’s active forays in the IOR — that began with Beijing’s assistance to Mahinda Rajapaksa administration in a fight against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) — through its naval power have added a new dimension to the security dynamics of the region.
In April, 2018, China Railway Beijing Engineering Group Co. Ltd. won a more than $300 million contract to build 40,000 houses in the Northern Province of Jaffna district, which suffered extensive damage during Sri Lanka’s 26-year-long civil war.
Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s recent visit to Beijing on 14 May 2019, saw Sri Lanka request more military equipment to aid in counter insurgency operations. China promptly agreed to the request, providing aid worth $14 million in Chinese-made counter-insurgency equipment intended to boost the capability of Sri Lanka’s domestic security forces. China has also agreed to provide Sri Lanka’s police force with over 150 vehicles.
Following the Easter Sunday terror attacks which killed over 250 people on April 21, Sri Lanka requested additional equipment from China. Beijing promptly provided an estimated $4.2 million worth of equipment, including 500 hand held metal detectors, 25 walk through safety inspection gates, 50 X-ray security inspection systems, 25 hand held vehicle scanners, three explosive detectors and three explosives and narcotics trace detectors. Besides the equipment, China also sent along a technical team to Sri Lanka for installation and training.
China has gifted a warship frigate 'P625' to Sri Lanka, in the latest sign of its deepening military cooperation with the strategically located island nation. The Chinese navy likewise held a two-month professional training for more than 110 Sri Lankan naval officers and sailors in Shanghai.
The fast changing geo-political situation in the Indian Ocean region has kept India’s foreign policy establishment on its toes. In this region a large number of small islands states are developing greater importance. Given China’s economic inroads and growing security presence, Beijing looks set to turn Sri Lanka into a modern day ‘semi-colony,’ the same way Great Britain and Portugal turned specific cities in southern China into their own semi-colonies back in the mid of 19th century.
Two countries in India’s backyard, Sri Lanka and Maldives, have relatively greater geo-strategic importance in the Indian Ocean region compared to other neighbours, as a result they have been in Chinese strategic radar since long. Sri Lanka, owing to its proximity to India and population size figures very prominently in the minds of policy makers in New Dehli and is kept on the top of India’s radar due to China increasing interests on the island and the implications for the wider Indian Ocean region.
The strategic location of Sri Lanka is such that it has always attracted the attention of various great powers, previously the United Kingdom but more recently the United States. Sri Lanka despite being a smaller state in the Indian Ocean Region has developed significant relevance for China, who now too seems determined to act as the island’s main economic and security guarantor.
Risks versus rewards: rising debt and influence
China’s influence however comes at a cost for Sri Lanka, as we are now witnessing. As previously stated, China’s increased footprint in Sri Lanka began back in 2007, when Beijing provided military and diplomatic support to end the three decade’s old conflict with the Tamil Tigers. Chinese financial assistance proved invaluable for the maintanance of the Sri Lankan economy, in particular, infrastructure developments such as the above mentioned, Port City, Hambantota Port and Colombo International Container Terminal. A decade later however Beijing’s chickens have come home to roost. As of 2017, Sri Lanka’s debt was standing at 77.6% of the country’s GDP, with its budget deficit at 5.5 percent of the country’s GDP.
As a result of this debt crisis Sri Lanka has been forced to turn to China for fresh loans, China has in the last few years become the largest lender to Sri Lanka, with many of the original loans signed during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government. During his presidency an estimated $4.8 billion worth of loans were signed which led to the construction of the Hambantota port, a new airport, a coal-fired power plant and multiple new highways. In 2017, when Sri Lanka could no longer afford the debt repayments Beijing simply took over Hambantota on a 99 year lease and wrote off a debt of $1.1 billion.
China seems to have learnt well from history of international politics and especially from the Marshall Plan of United States of America. However, Marshall Plan had the instrumentality of grants whereas China is according loans and not grants to different countries wherever it is taking up infrastructural projects. The difference is that China expects a return for its money, whereas US was more interested to earn the loyalty of the countries at the expense of its money. The fact remains that these debts will continue to grow and Sri Lanka will remain on the hook for repayments in one form or another for a very long time to come.
In conclusion, the Indian Ocean Region is of significant geopolitical importance to China and its growing influence in Sri Lanka reflects this. China’s objectives, as should now be clear, is to develop its influence further through major ports of the littoral states in the region, giving Beijing access to secure vital sea lines of communications for its maritime security.
Sri Lanka’s geo-political location provides the best opportunity for China to achieve this strategy. Furthermore, with tensions rising between India and China over several geo-political issues including the border, Sri Lanka offers China a strategic asset with which to diminish India’s influence in the Indian Ocean. Over the last decade China has successfully built a large footprint in the IOR which only looks set to increase amidst the rising financial aid to Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Maldives. Sri Lanka and its major ports now form an intergral part of the Belt and Roads Initiative, and may just be the herald of a wider programme of Chinese economic and military projects in the years ahead. A large Chinese footprint may become the new normal in South Asia and the Indian Ocean.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Saurabh Singh is a Research Intern at South Asian Center, Manohar Parrikar- Institute for Defence and Strategic Analysis, New Delhi. Image credit: Mahinda Rajapaksta/Flickr.