The Sri Lankan Silk Road24

7/27/2019 The Sri Lankan Silk Road24

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SPOTLIGHT

The Sri Lankan Silk RoadThe Potential W ar Between China and the United States

PATRICK MENDIS ri Lanka, the "pearl" of the Indian Ocean,is strategically located within the east-westinternational shipping passageway. Like theold Silk Road that stretched from the ancientChinese capital of Xian all the way to ancientRome, modern China's strategic and commercial supplyline extends over the Indian Ocean and the South ChinaSea to include the focal transit port of Sri Lanka at thesouthern ipof India. Today, over 85 percent of China'senergy imports from the Middle East and mineralresources from Africa transit through Sri Lanka and otherso-called "string of pearls" ports. Beijing seeks to p rotectthese "pearls" as strategic economic arteries anchored allthe wayfrom he Persian G ulf and African waters to HongKong. Colonel Christopher Pehrson at the US Army W arCollege describes this elaborate network as:"The m anifestation of China's rising geopolitical in-fluen ce through efforts to increase access to ports andairfields, develop special diplom atic relationships, andmodernize military forces that extend from the SouthChina Sea through the Strait of Malacca, across theIndian Ocean, and on to the Arabian Gulf."To meet increasing demand for resources and tosecure their maritime trading routes through the IndianOcean, China has either built or reportedly plannedto construct vital facilities inBangladesh, Cambodia,Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan, Seychelles, Sri Lanka,and Thailand. In addition to these projects, China hasreportedly been exploring the expansion and establish-ment of other facilities at eastern and western maritimechoking ports of the Indian Ocean - the Gulf of Adenand the Arabian Sea as well as the Strait of Malacca - toaddress growing piracy issues, especially around Somalia,Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.Sri Lanka, the "crown jewel" of Beijing's naval stra t-egy, will soon have the over US$ 100 million Chinese-builtLotus Tower in Colombo - the highest edifice in SouthAsia and the nineteen th tallest building in the world - thatPATRICK MENDIS, author of Trade for Peaceand Commercial Providence, is an affiliate profe s-sor of public and international affairs at GeorgeMason University. He ackowledges with thanksthe assistance of Leah Green at Hong KongUniversi ty in wri t ing this art ic le.

can reportedly be seen from New Delhi. Th e Buddhiinspired (through the Lotus Sutra), soaring telecomm ucation tower symbolizes not only Beijing's foreign polislogan of "Peaceful Rising," but also projects an aurapower radiating from the former Middle Kingdom. Sudenly awakened to this reality, the United States and"string of pearl"-encircled India are increasingly w orriabout the Chinese adventure in subtlety and its possibconcealed intentions for the Indian Ocean.The Nervous N eighbor and the Assertive VisitorOne m ain cause of grave concern for D elhi and Waington is the construction of a billion dollar all-inclusdeepwater sea port at Hambantota - a smallfishingvillof 21,000 people on the southeastern coast of Sri LanIn exchange of generousfinancial,military, and diplomasupport to Sri Lanka, China has now begun to reap tbenefits of its strategic investment on the island by usthe sea port as a re-fuelling and docking station for Chinese Navy and commercial shipments. Ham bantotaalso one of President Mahinda Rajapaksa's constituencand is represented by his 2 5-year-old son Kamal in parment - an implicit but masterful move to advance a polcal dynasty in Sri Lanka through an extensive networkfamily members who now govern the island and foreidiplomacy. It is a strategy famously dubbed the "ColomConsensus" by the coKom/stmagiizme in London.Critics have also pointed ou t that China has finana comprehensive array of other infrastructure projectsSri Lanka, including an oil-storage facility, a new airporcoal-fired power plant, and an expressway, all of which reportedly negotiated and managed by Rajapaksa fammembers. With cheap commercial credit and importChinese labor, Beijing also builds main roads and pubbuildings in the war-damaged northern and eastern gions, and constructs a modem performance arts centeColombo. Ch ina has not only sold diesel railway engiand earthmoving equipment in the name of post-conflreconstruction, but Chinese companies have also invesin electronic and garm ent-making industries for which govem ment of Sri Lanka established a special free-trazone exclusively for Beijing.Given Ind ia's previous military debacle in Sri Lan(similar to the US debacle in Vietnam) and the assassition of Indian Prime M inister Rajiv G andhi by an L Tsuicide bomber. New Delhi leaders have restrained the


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SPOTLIGHT

A Chinese engineer oversees the excavation process at the construction site for the Chinese-Sri Lankan deep watershipping port in Ham ban tota, 149 miles southeast of Colom bo, Sri Lanka.selves from direct involvement in this new strategic pair-ing. At the same time, Sri Lankan B uddhist and Sinhaleseleaders are sensitive to the fact that the island's northernneighbor Tam il Nadu s ta te - home to more than 60 mil-lion Tamils - has a historic kinship with their ethnic andreligious counterparts in northern Sri Lanka.

More important ly, however , a complex dispositionof global geopolitics (for example, the Nobel LaureateDalai Lama and his Buddhist followers inthe Tibe tanparliament-in-exile just no rth of Delhi) has been a majorconcern for India, aswell as for C hina. India has c ontinue dto be vigilant about becoming the traditional nexus be-tween Lon don and Washing ton, whereas the British Navyused the island's Ch ina Bay in Trinco malee as a regionalnaval base until 1957 and it is still being occasionally usedby visiting US N avy ships. In ad dition, their military ou t-post on the island of Diego Garcia (leased by London toW ashin gton until 2036) is also in close proximity to Indiaand Sri Lanka, and remains a constant irritant to IndianOcean Zo ne of Peace advocates. As the do minant regionalpow er in S outh Asia, India is faced w ith a glut of complexhistorical issues (like Tibet and Pakistan) and emergingrealities (like terrorism and separatism) as China expandsits economic and maritime networks through Sri Lanka.

Could Sri Lanka become a "Chinese island" in theIndian O cean? Less than 25 miles off the coast of India, th e

rivalry between the US and its ideological nemesis Cubacomes to mind when one thinks about the increasinglyautocratic , family-run Buddh ist nation, which controls anestimated 70 percent of the national bud get according toJeremy Page of the Sunday Times in London. The re fore,might the nuisance Sri Lanka and its first family everbecome more like "India's Cuba" in the future?In Jan uar y 2012, Presid ent Rajapaksa revealed to agroup of foreign correspondents that "Sri Lanka is nopearl on China 's string" but maintained that Indians arehis "relations" and Ch inese are his "friends." T he presi-dent intentionally lefr out the United States, traditionallythe largest trade partner, and implied the British wereneocolonia l is ts whoalong with the Americanshadsuccessfully called for an external war crimes investigationagainst the Rajapaksa administration in the U N Hu ma nRights Council in March 2012.Despite all this, the increasing Chinese influence onthe island is hardly a match for the global and regionalpower competitions over Indian Ocean supremacy. Butthe octopus-like, Colombo-centric new Silk Road is atthe hub of an emerging G reat Gam e for the new century.The Colombo Consensus

Sri Lanka has been under the guidance of the Interna -tional Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank - both


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SPOTLIGHTundergirded by the influence of American foreign policy- over the past three decades, including their austeritymeasures and the condi t ional i ty of these two Bret tonWoods Institutions ' (BWIs) structural adjustment pro-grams. It has been a painful experience for islanders whosesocial welfare in education, health, and agriculture wasreduced by structural changes and budgetary reductions.The condi t ional i ty of Washington's policy prescription,known as the Washington Consensus , has primarily beeninfluenced by Am erican-led trade liberalization, econom icgrowth strategy, and democratic system of governanceand transparency.

W i t h the spectacular rise of Chinese economic suc-cess, whic h had opposed the conditionality of the Wash-ington Consensus, Beijing has begun to challenge the"t r ini ty" of Washington ins t i tut ions (the World Bank,I M F , and the US D ep a r t men t of the Treasury) by of-fering concessional financial assistance and commercialloans to other countries, and quietly developing a "stringof pearls" in the Indian Ocean. In Colombo, The SundayTimes reported that China's Fxport-Im port Bank providedmore than USS6.1 bill ion loans in 2009 for post-war de-velopment projects in Sri Lanka; this was more than theloans provided by traditional donors (the United States,India, and Japan) combined.

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7 Sri LankaChina has built or reportedly planned to build facilities in a number of countries,including the ones above. The United States and India have become increasinglyconcerned about China's intentions.

Unlike the BWIs in Washington, the Beijing Consen-sus has no conditions - like structural adjustments, pohcyreforms, competitive biddings, or democratic transparency- attached to their loans. The Sri Lankan ambassador tothe United States told the New Fork Times in February2010 that his "country looked for investors in America andaround the world, but China offered the best terms," and

that SriLanka doesn 't "have favorites." In a final analysthe Beijing offer of US$6.1 billion without conditionalover the W ashin gton loan of US$ 2.6 bill ion was certainmo re attractive for Rajapaksa. Indeed, the Chinese pohof non-interference in domestic affairs and respectnational sovereignty and local politics is one of the "bterms" for the Colombo adminis t rat ion.Intersecting Sino-Am erican and Indian RelationAs Colombo secured funds from Beijing and W a sington, the United States and India, the most powful and largest democracies in the world, have joinpursued a mutually-beneficial strategy to advance thshared political and economic philosophy. As Americfirms begin to invest in India in the wake of the US-Indcivil nuclea r pact, Japa nese com panies hav e also agreto invest US$10 billion on an "industrial corridor" textends 1,500 km between New Delh i and M u m b a i - tbooming commercial capi tal on the west coas t . Wsuch open economic and liberal trade pohcies, India hmoved away from its historically lethargic "Hi ndu rategrowth" and Non-Aligned M ovem ent foreign pol icy tmore Western-or iented and robust economic, diplomatand military force on the world stage.

Beijing has perceived these actions as a sign that tUn ited States and its aUies (like Jap aSouth Korea, and Taiwan) are delerately using India not only as a huconsumer market for their produand services but also as a c o uterweight to China in South AsChina has simultaneously agreedbuild two nuclear power plants fortradition al ally, Pakistan - the Indiarch-r ival . There are now overChinese companies with more th10,000 Chinese workers employon 122 major developm ent projectsPakistan, including the Gwadar pand Saindak coppe r mine site in Bachistan as well as the Gomal Zam dproject in Pakistan's federally admistered tribal areas. W ith a rangemassive development and deepwasea ports in Pakis tan, BangladeMyanmar , and Sri Lanka, China hactively put forward counterpoisstrategies to discourage or h mi t tAmerican presence in the region.The United States views China's "string of pearnaval strategy not only as a balance of power issue balso as a show of force; the high- tech Lotus TowerColombo is the latest example. America's involvemen tAfghanistan (and increasingly in Pakistan) and the centAsian republics as well as security and military ties


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SPOTLIGHTSouth-East Asian countries (like Indonesia, Singapore, andVietnam) and north-east Asian countries (South Korea,Japan, and Taiwan) is more than an emblemadc challengeto China's pronounced "Peaceful Rising" foreign policy.Beijing leaders - especially military leaders - feel that theUnited States has encircled them geo-strategically withUS bases and is selling advanced weapons to countrieslike Taiwan, a renegade republic in the Chinese perspec-dve. Caught in the m iddle both figurativelyand literally,the constellation of perceived threats makes India and SriLanka equally nervous.Adhering to the path of "Peaceful R ising," China hasnegotiated a number of settlements of territorial disputeswith Russia, Vietnam, and India. These unprecedenteddiplomatic acts by Chinese leadership po int to a differentvision of power in international negotiation and diplo-macy. At the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen inDecember 2009, for example, both China and India - theworld's largest and fourth-largest emitters of greenhousegases - joined forces together to oppose American-led

hke foreign poHcy to isolate Sri Lanka on the grounds ofhuman rights violations and alleged war-crimes commit-ted by both the military and the LTTE. By overridingAmerica's geopolitical interests in Sri Lanka, the Americanadministration initially pushed the UN Secretary Gen-eral to appoint an independent panel to investigate theatrocities com mitted by each party; Colombo successfullythwarted Ban Ki-moon's initiative with Indian backing andChinese support in May 2009.Eollowing continued pressurefrom he United S tates,the European Union and the United Nadons, the gov-ernment of Sri Lanka established the Lessons Learnedand Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) with membersappointed by President Rajapaksa himself. As the mediapublicized human rights violations alongside horribleimages from Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama adminis-tration took a sofrer view on Sri Lanka and its challenges.Commenting on Sri Lanka's civilian casualties and thehumanitarian crises of May 2009, President Obama said:"I want to emphasize that these photos [of Sri Lanka]

"T h e U nited States views China 's 'string of pearls ' naval strategynot only as a balance of pow er issue, bu t also as a show of force."

demands for supporting strong anti-global warming mea-sures. At the Cancun climate-change meeting in Mexicoin December 2010, China took a leading role advancingan agreement. Such diplomatic triumphs made the evolv-ing scope of international relations between and amongAmerica, China, and India even more complex.Th e leading trio also shares a common enemy: terror-ism both at home and abroad. Having global trade interestsand investment opportunities, whether competitive orcomplementary, each nation continuously searches forgreater security and stability in the Indian Ocean region asa prime necessity for their own national progress and em-ployment. Presiden t Barack Obam a's visit to China, soonfollowed by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh'strip to Washington in November 2009, clearly signifiedthe importance of the Chindian (that is, Chinese and In-dian) role in South Asian security. Some commentatorsviewed the trajectory of political, military, and econom icinterdependence as anew pragmatism of cooperationand competition. In response to an influential December2009 bipartisan US Congressional repor t (^'Re-charting USStrategy on Sr i Lanka") on C hinese inroads in the IndianOcean passageway, the Obama administration has nowbegun to "reset" its approach to Sri Lanka.The American Response through C olomboW ith the support of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moo n, the Obama W hite H ouse initially followed a Bush-

that were requested in this case are not particularlysensational, especially when compared to the pain-ful images that we remem ber from Abu Ghraib, bu tthey do represent conduct that did not conform withthe Army Manual. That's precisely why they wereinvestigated."Balancing the uneasy challenges of hellish war situa-tions and geostrategic interests, the Un ited States subse-quently len t implicit legitimacy to the LLRC in Colombo.Afrer the Sri Lankan external affairs minister was invited tomeet with Secretary Hillary Clinton at the State Depart-ment on May 28, 2010, Clinton said:"I want to thank Minister Peiris for our productivediscussion today and commend him for his commit-ment to the reconciliation process. The United Statespledges our continued support to Sri Lanka."The minister also promised Clinton that detaineeswould be resettled within three months, but more im-portandy, he called for "a multidimensional relationshipwith the United States," suggesting movement beyondalleged war crimes and human rights issues according tothe State Department.The bipartisan authors of Re-charting US Strategy on

Sri Lanka, Senators John Kerry (Democrat) and RichardLugar (Republican), were more blunt, declaring:"As Western countries became increasingly cridcalof the Sri Lankan G overnment's handling of the warand human rights record, the Rajapaksa leadership


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SPOTLIGHTcultivated ties with such countries as Burma, China,Iran, and Libya. While the U nited States shares withthe Indians and the Chinese a common interest insecuring maritime trade routes through the IndianOcean, the US Government has invested relativelylittie in the economy or security sector in Sri Lanka,instead focusing more on Internally Displaced Personsand civil society. As a result, Sri Lanka has grownpohtically and economically isolated from the W est."Having a greater awareness of China's strategicand long-term geoeconomic foundation in Sri Lanka, theKerry-Lugar Report made a cautionary note on America'sgeopolitical interest and strategy:President Rajapaksa was forced to reach out to o thercountries because the W est refused to help Sri Lanka fin-ish the war against the LTTE. These calculations, if lefrunchecked, threaten long-term US strategic interests inthe Indian Ocean.The two senators concluded: "With the end of thewar, the United States needs to re-evaluate its relation-

racy, open markets, and liberalized trade policies. Despwidely reported corruption and nepotism, the Rajapakdynasty appears to be pursuing a unique developmestrategy within a complex environment of global realitiand domestic needs; all development projects must channeled or approved by either the president himself his older brothe r, Basil, head of the Ministry of EconomDevelopment, who is notoriously known as "Mr. TePercent" for demanding a ten percent commission ovevery project. Th e president's younger brother. DefenSecretary Gotabaya, has integrated the Ministry of U rbDevelopment under his command in order to emplomilitary personnel in the public work programs.The confluence of the militarized econom ic develomen t, widespread corruption, alleged war crimes, the cocentration of all powers in the executive presidency, anfamily members easily getting elected to parliament, alowith the arrogance and jubilant afrermath of the EelaW ar, have presented a negative international image of tonce-Buddhist and democratic nation. According to t

"Sri Lanka has departed from its long-cherished trademark ofWestern-style parliamentary democracy."

ship with Sri Lanka to reflect new political and econom icreahties." Th en, they added:"While humanitarian concerns remain important,US pohcy toward Sri Lanka cannot be dominatedby a single agenda. It is not effective at deliveringreal reform, and it shortchanges US geostrategicinterests in the region...This strategic drifr will haveconsequences for US interests...US policymakershave tended to underestimate Sri Lanka's geostra-tegic importance for American interests...Sri Lankais strategically lo cate d... directly in the middle of the'Old W orld,' w here an estimated half of the w orld'scontainer ships transit the Indian Ocean."Understanding Sri Lanka's strategic importance tothe United States, Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Peiris

reinforced a similar vision outlined by the two Demo-cratic and Republican senators - carefully using the word"multidimensional" to describe the nature of a new G reatGame of larger geopolitical and geoeconomic dynamicsin the region involving China and India. As an island na-tion, Sri Lanka's long-term survival is equally dependanton continuous connection to both the "Old World" andold friends like the United States.The Paradox of the Colombo ConsensusWith the Colombo Consensus depicted by RajapaksaFamily Inc., Sri Lanka has departed from its long-cher-ished trademark of Western-style parliamentary dem oc-

Colombo-based Sunday Leader, mentor to Mahinda apaksa and previous president, Chandrika Kumaratungsaid her successor's "abuse of power" meant internationrelations have "spiraled down reaching a new low in thcountry's history." The former president then addethat "Rajapaksas are uneducated and uncultured rascalsconcluding that the corruption is "appallingly bad" anthe political climate is "vindictive and threatening." Thpowerful characterization of her protg fa rther added the notoriety of the Rajapaksa family, which is allegedinvolved in extra-judicial killings and the disappearanof journalists.With this worldwide reputation, the success of thColombo Consensus and Sri Lanka's human prog ress wnow be defined by the degree of democratic freedom ththe government allows for its people - not the absolufreedom enjoyed by combative leaders and their famihwho govern the island in the nam e of national inte rest fpersonal aggrand izemen t. If their professed faith in Budhism would work, the doctrine of karma, outiined in thLotus Sutra, will self-correct the power-play journey thisland has embarked on, and their personal destiny ankarmic legacy. But if the subtle and emerging tensions a possible proxy war ever lead to direct conflict betw eeeither American, Chinese or Indian forces, an enormoutragedy for the "crown pearl" in South Asia would resuIt may indeed cause a sad detour from the peace-driveColomb o-centric new Silk Road of China. IB


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The Sri Lankan Silk Road24