After the Yatra, the numbers game

No one but a complete numbskull, clueless of the historic rivalry existing between India and China and ignorant of the current power play by both nations in the South Asian region with Lanka at the hub of contention, would have failed to fathom that India was against the Chinese-funded Colombo Port City.

Only a nitwit would have thought that India would keep her reservations about the security threat it would pose to her own borders to herself; and not make her opposition to the Port City Project crystal clear to the Lankan Government.

It was not the first time that India had expressed her opposition to Chinese forays into the island and certainly it will not be the last. Though India may not have published notices in the newspapers advertising to the world her objection to the Chinese encirclement of India with her String of Pearls’ policy in the Indian Ocean, it was only to be expected that Indian self interest in safeguarding her borders would dictate that she follows such a course, however paranoid her behavior may appear to some India watchers.

India, being Lanka’s closest neighbour with a massive stake in the island, had objected when the Rajapaksa regime allowed the Chinese to build the Hambantota harbour; had protested when the Rajapaksa regime allowed the Chinese to construct the Mattala Airport. India viewed the harbour as a possible future naval base for China to sail and anchor her warships and the airport as a possible airfield not even 16 miles away from Hambantota for China to land her fighter jets on the Mattala tarmac.

Thus when the Rajapaksa regime accepted with open arms without any regard for geopolitical realities and India’s natural concerns, China’s unsolicited project to construct an entire new city of 233 hectares on the Colombo seaboard, a horrified India viewed it as nothing less than allowing the Chinese to plant their red five-star flag on the capital’s port city soil.

Lanka, lying as the island does on the tip of the Indian sub continent, has always been considered as the Gateway to India; and from India’s point of view she can hardly be blamed if she gets the jitters at the very thought of having an enemy on her doorstep; with Lanka turned into a Chinese aircraft carrier with missiles pointed at her major cities.

Thus when the cabinet spokesman Minister Rajitha Senaratne stated on Tuesday at his weekly press briefing that India had exerted pressure on the present Government to suspend the port city project and revisit it later, the news would not have ruffled a single feather of surprise. It was already in the public domain.

But instead it was a matter that made the Joint Opposition take umbrage and attack the Government stating that revealing that India has pressured Lanka ‘reflects badly on both India and China’. Why? Does diplomatic protocol also demand that one must not speak the truth and conceal the truth from one’s own citizens? Even when they already know it?

The facts spoke for themselves. It hardly needed Rajitha Senaratne to spell it out. In fact, former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa had publicly spoken of how India had exerted pressure on the Rajapaksa government to stop the China port city project.

Last July speaking at a seminar on ‘Mega development, the country’s future and mega myths’, he had told the gathered audience that when the BJP government of India came to power, it was his responsibility to meet and hold talks with his Indian counterpart, the Indian National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval. Mr. Rajapaksa said: “His primary request was to stop the Colombo Port City. If it was presented to our government, then it definitely must have been presented to this government. “The reason he gave was that the Port City was a threat to the security of India”.

Most probably the Rajapaksa regime would have boorishly told India where to get off the bus, heavily dependent as the regime was on the almost bottomless pockets of the Chinese to dole out massive loans to keep the economy afloat, not to mention China’s veto powers as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to strike down any UN embargo resolution raised against Lanka on account of human rights issues?

It is this heavy handedness dealing with nations of the world on the strength of Chinese friendship alone which led to Lanka being condemned as an international pariah. The previous regime forsook the path of non-alignment long held as the bedrock of Lanka’s foreign policy to align the country exclusively to China.

This Thursday, the former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa exhorted political parties to take up this matter both in parliament and outside. The country needs a clear explanation in respect of the Minister’s statement, he said, adding that “the Yahapalana administration should explain whether India had to be consulted in respect of agreements with China or any other country deemed hostile to the regional power.”

Anything wrong with that? In international affairs, like in private relations, it is only right to consult those who may be affected or who think they will be affected by the course of action planned. In diplomatic jargon -- if that is what is called for keeping with the Rajapaksas sudden ‘politically correct’ philosophy -- it is phrased as solving issues through consultation and consensus.

If the Rajapaksa regime had followed this same course, had not thought that shacking up with the Chinese had empowered them with the right to treat the rest of the world with contempt and dismiss with disdain genuine concerns other nations, including India, may legitimately have, perhaps they may not have met with the fate they finally met.

In the words of President

After the Pada Yatra, a deflated JO has resorted to playing the numbers calculating the figures with their own Chinese made abacuses to inflate their burst balloon of hope of toppling the government.

According to Wimal Weerawansa there was a crowd of 100,000 or 200,000 but next time he promised there will be more. According to Dinesh Gunawardena the figure was 1. 5million. According to Mahindananda Aluthgamage it was 2 million.

But if you thought you were at work or at home or at play between July 28th and 1st August you are wrong. According to Geetha Kumarasinghe, you were at the Sirisena who declared last week, “If the previous government had governed the country properly its members, currently in the Opposition, would not have had to hoof it until they got blisters on their soles clamoring for another chance to rule”.

The Joint Opposition’s main ire was that Lanka had buckled under Indian pressure to stop the project in early 2015. But not a word of condemnation was uttered that the Government had buckled again this time under Chinese pressure to revive the project. Consider the following:

The Colombo Port City Project had been in the pipeline since 2011 but for various reasons never got off the ground. In September 2014 construction work finally began after it was officially commissioned by the then Lankan President Rajapaksa and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Though environmentalists and legal experts raised many environmental and sovereignty issues, their objections were summarily dismissed. India’s own security concerns in the region were studiously ignored, driving a further and almost irreparable wedge between Indo-Lanka relationships and making Rajapaksa persona non grata in India.

The advent of Maithripala Sirisena to power in January last year restored goodwill. The love hate relationship with India was back to love again. The work at the Port City was immediately halted, honouring one of the main election promises Ranil Wickremesinghe had made three weeks prior to the election. On December 17, 2014 addressing tourism industry officials, he had vowed to scrap the project. “I will stop it,” he had said. "We have to protect our coastal area. If the port city is built, we will lose the coastal area."

India was glad to have the Lankan lamb safely back in her pen. But not the Chinese. They were positively miffed. The new government had not bargained for China’s stoic perseverance to achieve its long term goals, especially the one that concerned her