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C. Raja Mohan
NEW DELHI: As India allows Tamil Nadu politicians to exercise a veto over its Sri Lanka policy
and squanders the opportunities for enhanced strategic cooperation with Colombo, China is
stepping in.
India which had earlier killed a Sri Lankan proposal for a land bridge between the two countries
has now added insult to injury by sanctioning a project to dredge a shipping canal to deepen
the chasm, both physical and metaphorical, between the two countries.
China, in contrast, has begun to assist Colombo to build a new world class port in the southern
part of the island nation at Hambantota. While New Delhi is prepared to sacrifice the gains from
economic integration with Colombo in order to appease Chennai, China is drawing Sri Lanka to
the centre of its maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean.
In her talks with the Indian leaders on Thursday, the visiting Sri Lankan President Chandrika
Kumaratunga would surely want to know if India is any long-term vision for strategic cooperation
with the island nation. India has justified the Sethusamudram project in the name of shortening
the distance between her eastern and western coasts and avoiding the circumnavigation of the
island.
In contrast, China is taking a strategic view of Sri Lanka's geopolitical location across the
shipping lanes of the Indian Ocean and is putting up money for the construction of a bunkering
facility and oil tank farm at Hambantota. To be sure, India's unbelievable short-sightedness on
Sri Lanka appears to have strong bipartisan support in New Delhi.
It was the BJP-led coalition that sat on the proposal from Colombo to build a rail and road links
between Dhanushkodi in Tamil Nadu and Talaimannar in Sri Lanka. The Congress-led coalition
has now gone one step further by rushing to clear the Sethusamudram project. Both decisions
were shaped by Chennai.
The land-bridge project, which was backed by the Asian Development Bank, would have
provided an efficient transport corridor between the ports and road networks of Sri Lanka and
southern India. Sri Lanka was also urging India to allow the development of Colombo into a
major transshipment hub for South Indian commerce.
If Sri Lanka was looking at cooperative prosperity with India through sub-regional economic
integration, Delhi has chosen to protect the parochial interests of Tamil Nadu. Unlike
Bangladesh, which has not stopped protesting the controversial Indian river-linking project and
Pakistan, which has whipped up concerns about Indian dam building in Kashmir, Sri Lanka has
chosen to avoid a public spat with India on the Sethusamudram project.
But the issue is unlikely to disappear from the bilateral agenda. While Indian officials had
informed authorities in Colombo last month about the impending decision on Sethusamudram,
the project and its underlying premises are of profound concern for Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile China's Huanqiu Engineering Corp has bagged the contract to develop Hambantota
facility. Chinese economic assitance will pay for ten oil tanks and four pipelines at Hambantota.
This infrastructure will help Sri Lanka to service the hundreds of ships that ply every week the
sea lanes just south of the island.
Probably anticipating the inevitable Indian protests, the ports and aviation minister of Sri Lanka,
Mangala Samaraweera said last month that Colombo is determined to move ahead on
Hanmbantota despite “vested interests” which had scuttled the project in the past. New Delhi
can surely complain; but it has no one but itself to blame. [Indian Express]