{"id":46058,"date":"2016-04-07T16:00:50","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T20:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=46058"},"modified":"2016-04-07T16:03:26","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T20:03:26","slug":"sri-lanka-adopts-pragmatic-approach-to-strike-a-balance-between-china-and-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=46058","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka Adopts Pragmatic Approach In Attempt to Strike a Balance Between China and India"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

T.Ramakrishnan\t<\/strong><\/p>\n

A year ago, Sri Lanka\u2019s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had just returned to power after a gap of over 10 years, chose Guruvayur, a temple town in Kerala, to make a pertinent observation on his country\u2019s ties with two big neighbours: \u201cSri Lanka is neither pro-India nor pro-China,\u201d he said. His comments came at a time there were concerns in India about China\u2019s rising involvement in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

It was during the presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa that Chinese presence in Sri Lanka became more perceptible through its involvement in big-ticket infrastructure projects such as the $1.4-billion Colombo Port City Project. <\/p>\n

Even though, in the run-up to the January 2015 presidential election, Mr. Wickremesinghe had campaigned against the project, the new government took a more pragmatic approach. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A senior academician points out that the present dispensation appears to be more \u201cobjective and transparent\u201d on the project than before.<\/p>\n

In mid-2015, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, then the Defence Secretary, told a seminar in Colombo that India\u2019s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval once asked him to halt the project, citing India\u2019s security concerns.
\nThe port city project has been proposed alongside the Colombo port, which has become a vital player in the Indian scheme of economic activity. <\/p>\n

This was why New Delhi had initially viewed the project with suspicion in view of reports of the Chinese project promoter getting land ownership rights.
\nThough India has not made its position public to Colombo\u2019s renewed move to revive the project, what has comforted it is that Sri Lanka has made it clear that land will be provided on a long-term lease and not on free hold.<\/p>\n

Sugeeswara Senadhira, an aide of Mr. Sirisena, feels Sri Lanka has to keep in good humour both the powers by reviving the Port City project and going along with India for the Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement.<\/p>\n

While favouring deeper economic engagement with China, experts on foreign affairs argue that Sri Lanka should not do anything that will be perceived by India as a security threat.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Hindu <\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By T.Ramakrishnan A year ago, Sri Lanka\u2019s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had just returned to power after a gap of over 10 years, chose Guruvayur, a temple town in Kerala, to make a pertinent observation on his country\u2019s ties with two big neighbours: \u201cSri Lanka is neither pro-India nor pro-China,\u201d he said. His comments …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Sri Lanka Adopts Pragmatic Approach In Attempt to Strike a Balance Between China and India’ »<\/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\/46058"}],"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=46058"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46060,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46058\/revisions\/46060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}