{"id":45715,"date":"2016-03-16T01:20:47","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T05:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=45715"},"modified":"2016-03-16T01:20:47","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T05:20:47","slug":"sri-lanka-is-being-redesigned-and-reconstituted-into-a-semicolony-to-serve-strategic-interests-of-india-and-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=45715","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka is Being Redesigned and Reconstituted into a \u201cSemi\u2019Colony\u201d to Serve Strategic Interests of India and USA"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nBy<\/p>\n

Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka\u2019s current foreign policy and external alignments are increasingly asymmetrical with the needs of its material base; with its fundamental economic, financial and developmental requirements and interests.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka is being redesigned and reconstituted into what Mao Zedong called a \u201csemi-colony\u201d. A semi-colony is one which does not belong to a single outside power but is shared by several, with each having its sphere of preponderant influence. <\/p>\n

The US-Sri Lanka partnership communique issued during Minister Samaraweera\u2019s visit to Washington DC, reveals the extent of the envisaged US \u2018engagement\u2019. It is both broad-gauge and deep-going. <\/p>\n

It envisages Sri Lanka as the crossroads where the US and India strategically converge. Sri Lanka is to be integrated into the Indo-US strategic grid in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific regions. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Veteran foreign correspondent PK Balachandran of the New Indian Express suggested that the Wickremesinghe administration may cooperate with the \u2018Hanuman Bridge\u2019 connecting South India and northern Sri Lanka in consequence of the partnership agreement with the USA because such contiguity is part of the larger strategic grid being rolled out by Washington. <\/p>\n

That grid is part of the attempt to contain China, and in Washington\u2019s grand strategic planning, Russia as well, i.e. to contain Eurasia (which has served as Sri Lanka\u2019s natural rear base and hinterland).<\/p>\n

The partnership statement shows that in furtherance of its project, the US will be engaged in the re-modelling of the Sri Lankan state institutions themselves, from the judiciary to the military. <\/p>\n

Moreover, Sri Lanka\u2019s laws, ideology and consciousness will be remoulded with US advice and assistance, so that the island can be converted into a loop in the US network in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific zones.<\/p>\n

As part of the game-plan, the Sri Lankan Government, State and policy process are now the playpen of the West\u2019s favoured children, the Tamil Diaspora and Colombo \u2018peace NGO\u2019 civil society. It is also as part of this lockdown that the Sri Lankan military is sought to be downsized and shifted away from defending its own borders to serving as \u2018sepoys\u2019 in UN peacekeeping missions, rented out as auxiliaries serving US strategic interests. <\/p>\n

Constitutional change is underway to establish a durable Tamil semi-state entity in the North and East which can serve as a Western and Indian enclave and springboard. Camouflaged as \u2018reconciliation\u2019, the objective is a federalized, weak, porous state, which empowers domestic constituencies\/communities with markedly anti-China consciousness. <\/p>\n

To fund the plan, the UNF government is about to embark on its boldest and most daring exercise in a policy agenda already overstuffed with bold and daring experiments. It is seeking to sucker one of the world\u2019s oldest and most sophisticated civilizations, namely China. <\/p>\n

Just as the 2009 victory over the Tigers was perceived as a win for the Beijing consensus, the overthrow of Rajapaksa in 2015 was projected as a defeat for the Beijing Consensus and a victory of the Washington Consensus. <\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Sri Lankan experiment is a projection of Washington\u2019s soft power interventionism –what the Chinese call \u201cpeaceful evolution\u201d– and constitutes an enlargement of Washington\u2019s footprint in Asia. <\/p>\n

Having spurned and insulted China — as External Affairs Minister Mangala Samaraweera did in his media conference in Beijing itself — Prime Minister Wickremesinghe\u2019s administration now wants China to subsidize Colombo\u2019s \u201cpivot\u201d to the US and India in their joint and separate efforts to compete with and contain China!<\/p>\n

The UNP government is trying to get China to actually pick up the bill for a project which is part of the US \u201chard\u201d and \u201csoft power\u201d offensive posture in Asia and the Indian Ocean region, encircling and targeting China (and Russia). <\/p>\n

China is supposed to pay for an anti-Chinese conversion of an island critically located at the crossroads of the strategically vital Indian Ocean region; an island which the UNP leadership seeks to carve up into two spheres of influence: the Southern two-thirds preponderantly for the US-UK and the Northern-third preponderantly for US ally, India. <\/p>\n

Thus China is meant to build and expand infrastructure — including ports in the South, where the Sinhala preponderance does not make for a large Indian footprint — for US use, while Trincomalee in the North-Eastern quadrant will be placed in a predominantly Indian sphere of influence from which China is quarantined. China is to construct the very platforms for the possible interdiction of China\u2019s Maritime Silk Route.<\/p>\n

In Prime Minister Wickremesinghe\u2019s plan, Beijing is to bankroll both the marginalization of patriotic political forces friendly to China as well as the burial of the Beijing Consensus. If it succeeds, the message will go out that there is no economic deterrent to a strategic delinking from Beijing and a tilt against its core regional interests!<\/p>\n

\u201cOur foreign policy has been reset\u2026Our friendship with our sister and neighbour, India, has reached new levels of excellence in the last twelve months…Our historic relations with our other powerful friend and neighbour, China, are as strong as ever and next month\u2019s
\nvisit by our Prime Minister to Beijing will further strengthen our ties. Our cordial ties with the US have now been elevated to of a very special friendship making the US one of Sri Lanka\u2019s staunchest friends in the international community. The US-Sri Lanka partnership dialogue bears testimony to this bond.\u201d (https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/restructuring-our-economy-our-foreign-policy\/)<\/p>\n

So India is \u201cour sister\u201d with whom relations \u201chave reached new levels\u201d, the US which sponsored an intrusive resolution on Sri Lanka at the UNHRC despite the election of a friendly government is a \u201cvery special friend\u201d and \u201cone of Sri Lanka\u2019s staunchest friends\u201d, while China, our demonstrably, indubitably, staunchest friend over decades, is merely \u201cour other powerful friend and neighbuor\u201d [sic] with whom relations have not been upgraded and \u201care as strong as ever\u201d. <\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Sri Lankan experiment is a projection of Washington\u2019s soft power interventionism –what the Chinese call \u201cpeaceful evolution\u201d– and constitutes an enlargement of Washington\u2019s footprint in Asia<\/p>\n

China is clearly ranked third in the hierarchy, so why should it be the first to reach for its purse, and most deeply too? Shouldn\u2019t the Prime Minister take his begging bowl and go plead with either our \u201csister\u201d whose fishing boats pillage our waters, or our \u201cvery special\u201d friend \u201cone of our staunchest\u201d, rather than solicit our \u201cother powerful friend\u201d, the downgraded China? <\/p>\n

The new Sri Lankan model is the offspring of the union between our \u201csister\u201d India and our \u201cvery special friend\u201d the USA. The current Colombo model is one in which China is the preponderant financial contributor but is relegated to a subordinate role and status in the political, diplomatic and strategic spheres. China builds the economic foundation and is accommodated in the basement, while the US and India own the building and occupy the penthouse apartments. <\/p>\n

Harim Pieris, a confidant and former advisor of former President Kumaratunga recently recommended that Sri Lanka be to India as Hong Kong is to China, overlooking the fact that Hong Kong is a part of, and belongs to China while Sri Lanka isn\u2019t a part of and doesn\u2019t belong to India.<\/p>\n

An authentic, unvarnished expression of the decadent comprador ruling elite\u2019s opinion of China was exhibited in ex-President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga\u2019s shameful description of the Nelum Pokuna as a \u201ccommode\u201d (\u201ckakkussi pochchiya\u201d). The building was a gift from China and modelled on the magnificent Lotus Pond of King Parakramabahu\u2019s Polonnaruwa. A greater contrast with the conduct of Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike who never forgot China\u2019s generosity in gifting the BMICH, cannot be imagined.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:Daily Mirror<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka Sri Lanka\u2019s current foreign policy and external alignments are increasingly asymmetrical with the needs of its material base; with its fundamental economic, financial and developmental requirements and interests. Sri Lanka is being redesigned and reconstituted into what Mao Zedong called a \u201csemi-colony\u201d. A semi-colony is one which does not belong to a …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Sri Lanka is Being Redesigned and Reconstituted into a \u201cSemi\u2019Colony\u201d to Serve Strategic Interests of India and USA’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45716,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45715\/revisions\/45716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}