Beijing’s muscle flexing

Nudging an island nation back into Delhi’s ambit

By Asanga Abeyagoonasekera

When pressure tactics from a powerful foreign ally run parallel with widespread public frustration at home over a deepening economic crisis, the challenge before the Sri Lankan regime can only become increasingly more insurmountable. More so, when the new budget presented by Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa presents no easy solutions to tackling the foreign exchange crisis facing the country, compounded by the food shortage that stems from the recent ban on agro-chemical fertilisers that has its genesis in an unexpected confrontation with China.

Basil Rajapaksa’s upcoming Delhi visit, announced this week for a key meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, facilitated by the new Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Milinda Moragoda and Indian High Commissioner Gopal Baglay coming on the heels of the spat with Beijing, has but naturally set off fresh speculation on whether Colombo’s delicate balancing act of juggling ties with Delhi and Beijing will see a recalibration.

Demonstrating their frustration and anger over the repressive regime of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa were thousands of people who gathered in a mass rally in Colombo last week. Organized by the main opposition party, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) headed by Sajith Premadasa, the economic crisis that triggered multiple shocks, including a shortage of essentials and a rising cost of living was the primary driver for the public agitation. Organised without the approval of health authorities, there were multiple attempts by police to prevent the rally with the man on the street seeing it as yet another attempt to use the pandemic restrictions to suppress the democratic norms in the country and reinforce its autocratic rule.

But the massive protest does reflect the deep public outrage in the country. The heavily militarised regime in Sri Lanka will face severe headwinds in the coming months on the escalating economic crisis and human rights abuses. The majoritarian polity shows signs of a clear shift by the Rajapaksa regime. The arbitrary detention of hundreds of protesters using the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) was one manifestation of that shift. Handing over the crucial ‘one country one law’ task force to an ultra-nationalist Buddhist monk was the second, coming as a shock to the minority communities. Overall, the policies of the regime all point towards continuing chaos amid a worsening crisis.

Regional Geopolitics and Chinese pressure in Sri Lanka

As U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met virtually to ensure competition between the US and China does not lead to conflict., the tensions over Taiwan, bilateral trade, IndoPacific security have steadily escalated over time, underscoring the repeated warnings of China’s military buildup and its hypersonic missile capability by Pentagon senior-level security experts. While the Biden-Xi virtual meet failed to produce any major breakthrough, it did lower the temperature after geopolitical tensions began to rise. China has been assiduous in securing its national interests, working to enhance its hold over a number of South Asian nations with Sri Lanka being the clearest example of China’s widening footprint in the region. Sri Lanka’s growing economic vulnerability is used by Beijing to its advantage.

Sri Lanka, an island nation right off the coast of the Indian subcontinent, is a clear case study to understand the implications of China’s drive to use large scale infrastructure projects, vaccine diplomacy, and Chinese loans to secure its hold over the Indian Ocean. Working in tandem with a regime that had an almost military-like grip and orientation, and headed by a former military officer in Gotabaya Rajapaksa, China found the present Rajapaksa regime easier to work with, than the first Rajapaksa regime of 2005-2015. Over the years, China has built two critical infrastructure facilities facing the Indian Ocean: Hambantota Port and Colombo Port City, the second being in the heart of the nation’s capital. China has secured a long term foothold due to loosely crafted lease agreements which allow these facilities to be transformed into military bases. By floating the idea that third countries could invest in Chinese infrastructure, Xi Jinping’s regime claims it has no intention to militarise these facilities. But that’s no more than a strategy to hide its military intentions from the public.

The new Pentagon report highlights China’s intention ‘to establish a more robust overseas logistics and basing infrastructure to allow the PLA to project and sustain military power at greater distances. Beyond its base in Djibouti, the PRC is pursuing additional military facilities to supp