Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s meetings with both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping have now concluded, and official statements have been dispatched from New Delhi and Beijing.
The recent Dissanayake-Jinping meeting seems to have caused some concern on the Indian side that Colombo is getting a little too close to China. This is a rational fear, given the number of agreements and MoUs that were signed by AKD in Beijing.
These fears are also fuelled by many local factors, such as unofficial rumours that the ban on Chinese “research” vessels will not be re-imposed, and the fact that the JVP (the National People’s Party coalition’s most important member) is perceived by many to still be a strongly Leftist party.
However, a deeper comparison of the two State visits (and especially both Joint Statements) might suggest that things are not too bleak for India-Sri Lanka relations either. And they do expose one area in which India seems to be far ahead of China.
India’s advantage with Sri Lanka comes down to one basic thing – a focus on specifics and actionable ways forward, rather than vague declarations of friendship.
China’s engagement with Sri Lanka currently lacks specifics. Even when comparing the joint statements made by both New Delhi and Beijing, it is quite clear that India’s statement deals with direct initiatives and data, while China’s statement focuses more on broadly reaffirming a BRI narrative.
Consider the security domain, India’s statement listed out specific issues that had to be handled bilaterally, such as terrorism, money laundering, drug trafficking etc, along with a clear pathway on how to achieve such levels of cooperation, such as joint training, maritime surveillance, signing a Defence Cooperation Agreement, sharing best practises, cooperating on hydrography etc.
China’s statement, however, only mentions generic “capacity building” for “judicial, law enforcement and security cooperation”, but avoids any details on how this could be operationalized, or if such things are even possible. In fact, there are key security issues which the Chinese do not approach at all. Terms like “energy” and “defence” are completely absent in the Chinese statement, which is surprising since these are fundamental pillars of regional cooperation in South Asia.
The Indian statement on the other hand, has entire sections dedicated to energy and defence, with specific points listed out for each. What this could mean is that, moving forward, energy security and defence cooperation in Sri Lanka is far likelier to be an Indian priority rather than a Chinese one.
For New Delhi, this is something to latch on to quickly. Energy security, as proven by the 2022 crisis, is arguably the most overwhelming concern of the Sri Lankan middle class today.
If India could accelerate its energy connectivity with Sri Lanka, and become the most reliable guarantor of energy security to the Sri Lankan grid, this itself gives New Delhi a major strategic edge over Beijing.
In any kind of jostling for position in Sri Lanka, energy will be a huge part of the discourse, and the Indians will have a huge advantage over the Chinese if this is taken care of.
Beijing’s vagueness on security matters is not simply restricted to defence cooperation or energy security either. Even in terms of discussing our financial security, this difference in both approaches becomes very visible. India’s statement on the debt crisis goes into specific figures, such as the USD 4 Billion emergency support and the USD 20.66 million for debt relief.
China’s language is far vaguer, claiming that its assistance to Sri Lanka was “robust” but refraining from mentioning figures. Interestingly, there is one part in China’s statement that talks about how “Sri Lanka expressed its desire” for the debt restructuring to be expedited, without any mention of whether China agreed.
Most of the economic language in the Chinese statement similarly focuses on broad BRI lines, not specifics.
Thus, China’s engagement with Sri Lanka is based far more on a larger narrative than a localized partnership. To China, Sri Lanka is part of a much wider conceptual framework known as the BRI. Everything about the bilateral relationship is seen in the larger context of this giant initiative spanning 150 countries.
India’s relationship with Sri Lanka on the other hand, is far more centred on the particularities of an Indo-Sri Lanka friendship, rather than a larger framework. There is certainly an element of the SAGAR doctrine in it as well, but the crux of the dynamic remains bilateral, with special attention paid to a two-way relationship.
The awkward international positioning of Colombo’s new foreign policy makes this even more obvious. Speaking from China, President Dissanayake has now explicitly opposed Taiwanese independence. The contrast between this and the joint statement from President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit in 2023 is hard to miss. While the 2023 declaration merely insisted on China being the sole legal government, the most recent declaration firmly supports “all efforts” for “national reunification”. As in, if China was to invade Taiwan tomorrow, today’s Sri Lankan government would support it.
Many critics have pointed out to how this is pushing us too close to China, and that small nations like Sri Lanka should avoid taking a stand on issues which do not impact us directly. But what they are missing is that this might be good for China-Sri Lanka relations in the short run, but potentially disastrous for it in the long run. If anything, India should be celebrating this as a diplomatic gaffe from China.
Since no other political party or leader in Colombo would be willing to take up such a blatantly anti-West position, Beijing has essentially made the NPP government take an international stand which will be reversed by the next party coming to power, no matter whom. If and when a new regime inevitably forms a government somewhere down the line,
Colombo will have to reverse its Taiwan position to a more neutral one, which will invariably lead to displeasure from Beijing at that time. If anything, a Sri Lankan regime cheerleading a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, is simply setting itself up for a reversal.
It should thus be clear when one looks at all these factors, that the supposed surge in China-Sri Lanka relations is not particularly a thing of concern for India. If anything, these visits highlight a clear-cut advantage possessed by India, which has to be harnessed strategically. Visually, the optics might suggest that Colombo is veering towards Beijing, and that will always be something India wants to be vigilant against. But the paranoia that there is some seismic shift in Colombo, is more of an illusion than a reality.
The Indian joint statement is more of an implementable action-plan while the Chinese statements are simply vague proclamations of friendship. The faster India moves in mobilizing all these plans, the wider the gulf becomes.
It is time to put the paranoia aside and race ahead on the specifics.
