{"id":52325,"date":"2017-04-04T18:22:31","date_gmt":"2017-04-04T22:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=52325"},"modified":"2017-04-04T18:24:56","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T22:24:56","slug":"indian-mp-sashi-tharoor-expresses-in-colombo-the-concerns-of-hs-country-over-chinas-presence-in-sri-lanka-and-growing-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=52325","title":{"rendered":"Indian MP Sashi Tharoor Expresses in Colombo the Concerns of his Country Over China’s Presence in Sri Lanka and Growing Influence."},"content":{"rendered":"

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Indian lawmaker Dr. Shashi Tharoor yesterday voiced his country\u2019s concerns about China\u2019s presence in Sri Lanka as well as its growing influence in the Indian Ocean.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some concerns in India if China\u2019s interests here undermine our own historical and cultural links built over generations,\u201d Tharoor said in his keynote at the launch of a political biography of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe authored by Dinesh Weerakkody.<\/p>\n

Dr. Tharoor said that China \u2018s ambitions in the South China Sea have extended well into the Indian Ocean and the prospect of an emerging superpower casting its shadow has caused anxiety in a number of states that have been looking to India as an alternative security provider.<\/p>\n

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Referring to China\u2019s latest push, the \u2018One Belt One Road\u2019 initiative, he said it must be remembered that the older silk route at that time carried serious geopolitical tensions too. <\/p>\n

\u201cIndia has been better at projecting soft power in the region than hard power but there are concerns that we are gradually being strangled by China\u2019s string of pearls around our oceanic neck, \u201che said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Tharoor said while India investments in Sri Lanka today amount to over a billion dollars, with another billion in the pipeline, there were concerns among the India business community if they were getting a level playing field on par with their Chinese competitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne concern that many in the private sector in India have expressed to me is the extraordinary stringency of Sri Lanka\u2019s Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) s applied to Indian firms. They feel Chinese companies don\u2019t face as many hurdles as Indian companies do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dr. Tharoor, who is also a former UN Under-Secretary-General, former Indian Minister of State for Human Resource Development and Minister of State for External Affairs, said India has consistently expressed the need for national reconciliation through a negotiated political settlement in Sri Lanka which is acceptable to all communities and is consistent with democracy, pluralism and respect for human rights.<\/p>\n

He said that India cannot help but be involved as Sri Lanka\u2019s closest neighbor but also due to the India Tamil population which remains greatly concerned about their ethnic cousins across the Palk Straits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not merely committed to mending the past but we are also committed to Sri Lanka\u2019s future,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

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

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Indian lawmaker Dr. Shashi Tharoor yesterday voiced his country\u2019s concerns about China\u2019s presence in Sri Lanka as well as its growing influence in the Indian Ocean. \u201cThere are some concerns in India if China\u2019s interests here undermine our own historical and cultural links built over generations,\u201d Tharoor said in his keynote at the launch of …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Indian MP Sashi Tharoor Expresses in Colombo the Concerns of his Country Over China’s Presence in Sri Lanka and Growing Influence.’ »<\/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\/52325"}],"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=52325"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52327,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52325\/revisions\/52327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}