Sri Lanka's Attempt to Strike a Balance between India and China

Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s failed bid to return to power as Sri Lanka’utes prime minister is seen by many like a major blow for Beijing’utes growing influence in the country and the region. The outcome of August’utes parliamentary elections, which followed Rajapaksa’s ouster within January, seems to signal a return to Sri Lanka’s more traditional international policy orbit: balancing India’s security sensitivities with its pursuit of other relationships, including with China.

Since independence, Sri Lanka has been both fearful of Indian hegemony and usually realistic regarding its options. The country has to face the difficult actuality of dealing with its giant, nervous and sometimes overbearing neighbour. This forces Colombo to perform a delicate balancing act: it must try to create a few space for itself through limited relationships with extra-regional powers, whilst constantly reassuring New Delhi that it will not threaten India’s regional dominance.

This delicate balance long reflects Colombo’s external relationships with major powers, including with Britain, the United States and China. In addition, although Brand new Delhi usually grudgingly tolerates Colombo’s flirtations, there are real limits.

Colombo knows nicely the consequences of provoking India’s ire. In the early 1980s, New Delhi mistakenly convinced itself that Sri Lanka was going to allow the United States to build a signals intelligence facility and even a naval base on the island. The content for Colombo was clear: there were red lines that Sri Lanka should not cross in its relationships with extra-regional powers.

These events led a few to talk about the so-called ‘Finlandisation’ of Sri Lanka: a good implicit understanding that Colombo would steer clear of security relationships with other forces, while India would refrain from interfering in Sri Lanka’s domestic affairs. This idea does not do rights to the intricacies of the connection, but it does express an uncomfortable truth — that small nations with large and anxious neighbours may find it in their pursuits to limit the physical exercise of their sovereignty. Not that Sri Lanka has ever been a client state of India. Indeed, Colombo has often shown by itself to be adept at calibrating its strategic distance from India — keeping New Delhi on its toes and leveraging potential advantages of its neighbour.

But this fragile balance came unstuck over the last few years under Rajapaksa’s increasingly authoritarian and corrupt rule — and a bath of Chinese money. Rajapaksa not just seemed to favour Chinese opportunities but he also began to flirt with a limited Chinese protection presence on the island. Brand new Chinese-built ports at Hambantota and Colombo became symbols of Beijing’s presence in the area, fuelling claims of a ‘String of Pearls’ across the Indian Ocean. China built a satellite train station and there were rumours of a possible air force presence.

The turning point came in September 2014 when a Chinese submarine and minder created an unexpected visit to Colombo only times before the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to New Delhi. This seemed that Beijing was trying to send a awkward message to India. New Delhi summoned the Sri Lankan foreign minister to suggest that there should be no further appointments of Chinese submarines. When Rajapaksa sanctioned a return visit of the sub in November, many took this as an explicit signal that Sri Lanka was abandoning it’s longstanding balancing act and possibly slanting to China.

This, apparently, was a step too far. Only few weeks later, Maithripala Sirisena, then a minister within Rajapaksa’s government announced that he would stand against Rajapaksa because president. By January, Rajapaksa’utes regime, which looked permanently cemented into power, vanished. The full extent of India’s involvement in the Sri Lankan elections in January 2015 and again in August 2015 remains unclear, but there is little doubt that New Delhi was at minimum able to unite Tamil groups towards Rajapaksa, no doubt lubricated with plenty of money.

Where does that leave Sri Lanka’s foreign policy? It seems like it will move back towards a long-term balancing act. Colombo will not be beholden to Indian, but it will certainly pay much more attention to New Delhi’s protection sensitivities while pursuing a more cordial relationship with the Western. There may not be any further visits of Chinese submarines any time soon, however Sri Lanka will continue to court Chinese expense to develop Sri Lanka’s infrastructure and manufacturing base. But it may also be careful to ensure that other investors, including from Japan and India, are given investment opportunities on the island. Sri Lanka could have bright economic prospects as a new ‘Bengal Tiger’ economy and China will play an important role in that.

Beijing’s Worldwide Times contends that: ‘Even though partisan politics may have a particular effect on bilateral ties … No matter which celebration takes power, it will maintain a good relationship with China’. That is certainly true, but at the same time, nov the Rajapaksa regime does represent a significant setback for China’utes hopes to develop a greater protection presence in the Indian Ocean to support its economic interests. Seen alongside moves through Myanmar’s regime to range itself from Beijing, it’s a reminder of the risks of counting on authoritarian leaders for friends.

Sri Lanka tilts back again from China is republished with permission from East Asian countries Forum