Sri Lanka’s relationship with China has been a controversial discussion during the last decade, dominating both domestic and international political conversations. The strengthening relationship between the island nation and the emerging global power has been largely economic. Yet it is quite clear that Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor, India, and the United States are diligently monitoring these developments in the China-Sri Lanka relationship.
China has been a major economic partner for Sri Lanka. Beijing’s assistance has been crucial in saving the poorly performing Sri Lankan economy during the last three years. At the same time, Sri Lanka is compelled not to antagonize India, the closest neighbor of the island, with which Sri Lanka’s relationship runs deep and far back. The India-Sri Lanka relationship is vastly different than its ties with China.
With India, Sri Lanka’s relationship during the post-colonial era goes well beyond economic relations. India has been extremely influential in Sri Lanka’s domestic politics. For instance, India played a key role in introducing the 13th Amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka, which brought power devolution to the country to provide a solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict. Concerns that ethnic conflict, particularly the problems of Tamil minorities living in Sri Lanka, are often amongst the political discussions in India, especially in Tamil Nadu. In 1987, India sent its army to fight against the domestic terrorist group LTTE, which demanded a separate country for Tamils in Sri Lanka. The mission is often considered a failure, and the then-Indian premier, Rajiv Gandhi, called back the Indian army given their failure to defeat the LTTE. Later, the LTTE killed Gandhi, claiming revenge for the operations against the LTTE. The war between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE ended in 2009. However, the concerns about power devolution to the Tamil minority remain unaddressed and India has been consistently pushing Sri Lanka for full implementation of the 13th Amendment. Most recently, the same concern was raised by India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar during his visit to Sri Lanka in early 2021.
China’s relationship with Sri Lanka has been vastly different, due in part to China’s greater distance from the island. While China has been an ally of Sri Lanka in the post-independence period, its involvement in Sri Lanka’s domestic affairs has been minimal. The growth of the China-Sri Lanka relationship is a recent phenomenon and one largely anchored on economic and financial ties. However, in recent years, military and political relations between the two countries have also grown.
Read More at https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/the-economics-of-the-china-india-sri-lanka-triangle/
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