{"id":78781,"date":"2022-07-28T00:36:47","date_gmt":"2022-07-28T04:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=78781"},"modified":"2022-07-28T17:36:24","modified_gmt":"2022-07-28T21:36:24","slug":"india-says-it-will-protect-its-interests-as-chinese-research-and-survey-vessel-yuan-wang-5-heads-to-hambantota-port-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=78781","title":{"rendered":"India says it will protect its interests as Chinese research and survey vessel “Yuan Wang 5\u201d heads to Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Krishna N. Das and Waruna Karunatilake<\/strong><\/p>\n

India, which is trying to expand its influence in crisis-hit Sri Lanka after China made deep inroads there, said on Thursday it was aware of reports about the planned visit of a Chinese vessel to a Sri Lankan port built with money from Beijing.<\/p>\n

Shipping data from Refinitiv Eikon showed research and survey vessel Yuan Wang 5 was en route to the southern Sri Lankan port of Hambantota and was expected to arrive on Aug. 11.<\/p>\n

“The government carefully monitors any developments having a bearing on India’s security and economic interests, and takes all necessary measures to safeguard them,” India’s foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told a weekly media briefing.<\/p>\n

“I think that should be a clear message.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He did not say what measures India was taking and who the message was addressed to.<\/p>\n

China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sri Lankan officials could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

A Sri Lankan government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Indian diplomats in Colombo had lodged a verbal protest with the Sri Lankan foreign ministry on Monday.<\/p>\n


\n‘SPACE TRACKING’<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Sri Lankan consulting firm, the Belt & Road Initiative Sri Lanka, says on its website that Yuan Wang 5 would be in Hambantota for a week.<\/p>\n

“The vessel will conduct space tracking, satellite control and research tracking in the north-western part of the Indian Ocean region through August and September,” it says, without citing a source.<\/p>\n

Sri Lanka formally handed over commercial activities in its main southern port to a Chinese company in 2017 on a 99-year lease after struggling to repay its debt. The port is near the main shipping route from Asia to Europe.<\/p>\n

U.S. and Indian officials have been concerned that the $1.5 billion port could become a Chinese military base.<\/p>\n

A Sri Lankan official told Reuters on Monday Beijing was welcome to pour more money into vast China-backed projects in Hambantota and Colombo. <\/p>\n

China is one of Sri Lanka’s biggest lenders and has also funded airports, roads and railways, unsettling India.<\/p>\n

As Sri Lanka now battles its worst economic crisis in seven decades, India this year alone has provided it support of nearly $4 billion.
\nResponding to a tweet on the proposed Hambantota visit, Indian security analyst Nitin A. Gokhale invoked Sri Lanka’s decision to allow a Chinese submarine and a warship to dock in Colombo in 2014, a move that angered India at the time.<\/p>\n

“2014 redux?,” Gokhale said on Twitter. “Harmless port call or deliberate provocation?”<\/p>\n

India’s concerns over Chinese influence in Sri Lanka come as U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping held their fifth call as leaders on Thursday amid tensions over a possible visit to Chinese-claimed Taiwan by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.<\/p>\n

Also on Thursday, Taiwan’s military fired flares to warn away a drone that “glanced by” a strategically-located and heavily fortified island close to the Chinese coast that was possibly probing its defences, the Taiwanese Defence Ministry said.<\/p>\n

Source:Reuters<\/em><\/p>\n

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

By Krishna N. Das and Waruna Karunatilake India, which is trying to expand its influence in crisis-hit Sri Lanka after China made deep inroads there, said on Thursday it was aware of reports about the planned visit of a Chinese vessel to a Sri Lankan port built with money from Beijing. Shipping data from Refinitiv …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘India says it will protect its interests as Chinese research and survey vessel “Yuan Wang 5\u201d heads to Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka’ »<\/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\/78781"}],"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=78781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78782,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78781\/revisions\/78782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}