Sri Lanka Needs Support, Not ‘Unwanted Pressure’ To Serve Agenda: India on China’s Spy Ship in Hambantota
Vinayak Barot
New Delhi: After China alleged India that the New Delhi government is interfering in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs, India criticized China and firmly communicated to Beijing that Colombo needs “support, not unwanted pressure or unnecessary controversies to serve another country’s agenda,”
The island nation is grappling with the worst economic crisis since 1948.
The reaction comes after China hit out at India on its objection to the docking of the Chinese ballistic missile and satellite tracking ship ‘Yuan Wang 5’ at the Hambantota port.
The High Commission of India in Sri Lanka tweeted, “We have noted the remarks of the Chinese ambassador. His violation of basic diplomatic etiquette may be a personal trait or reflecting a larger national attitude.”
“India, we assure him, is very different,” the Indian mission noted. The ambassador’s imputing a geopolitical context to the visit of a purportedly scientific research vessel is a giveaway, the mission said, adding that “opaqueness and debt-driven agendas are now a major challenge, especially for smaller nations. Recent developments are a caution.”
However, India has smartly decoded the move of the Beijing government to counter India from the South side. According to international political experts, China is in the middle of the sea with a small net to catch the big whale economy.
One of the main reasons behind Financial trouble in Sri Lanka is a loan from China also, the government of Sri Lanka should develop relations with other countries and smarty move out of the debt-trap set by China. More financial relations of the Colombo government with China may add more trouble for Sri Lanka in the future, the experts added.
The arrival of the ship at the Hambantota port stirred controversy as China leased the port from Sri Lanka in 2017 for 99 years after the island nation failed to pay debts related to the construction of the facility. China is a major creditor of Sri Lanka and is vital to Sri Lanka’s efforts to restructure its debt to secure a bailout from the IMF.
The permission to docking of the Chinese research vessel becomes crucial amid the economic crisis in Sri Lanka which is trying to seek an early bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
