India may fulminate as much as it wants but the fact is that China has laid a firm strategic foundation in Sri Lanka with two mega infrastructure projects which are bound to be used as military assets by Beijing. However much Sri Lankan leaders claim that the Hambantota Port and the Colombo Port City are only aimed at boosting the island nation’s economy, China will surely stealthily use them for intelligence and military purposes too.

Until now, India shared a winding and disputed land border with China only in its north. China always had close ties with Pakistan and Beijing’s shadow has steadily increased in Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Bhutan. With Sri Lanka, the pincer movement is complete.

Colombo Port City, which has become a virtual Chinese colony, lies only 290 km from Kanyakumari in India’s southern tip.

India’s Covid 19 crisis is sure to end one day but its concerns over the steadily expanding Chinese imprint in Sri Lanka are unlikely to disappear anytime soon, no matter what friendly noises leaders in Colombo make.

Chinese backing for Rajapaksas

For the record, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his elder brother and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa insist that they will do nothing to worry India or impair its security. Sri Lanka, the president says, follows “a neutral foreign policy”.

It may be recalled that China, which always acts with long-term goals in view, provided crucial military and diplomatic support when Sri Lanka unleashed its military to crush the Tamil Tigers in 2009, ending a quarter-century of armed conflict.

At a time when India refused to give overt military backing (while quietly sharing critical intelligence on the LTTE), the Chinese help laid the foundations for a strong and lasting friendship with the Rajapaksas.

The New York Times reported in June 2018 that USD 7.6 million was paid from a Standard Chartered account of a Chinese company to Mahinda Rajapaksa’s aides and activities ahead of the 2015 elections. This should not raise too many eyebrows because Chinese firms have been accused of paying slush money to officials and politicians in countries where its interests are at stake.

The payments betrayed China’s wish that the Rajapaksas should be in power. In contrast, those close to the Rajapaksa family blamed New Delhi for the political coup by Maitripala Sirisena who became the president in January 2015.

Ever since the Rajapaksas became the president and prime minister in November 2019 and won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections the next year, they have deepened their engagements with Beijing. It is also clear that there is no chemistry between the brothers and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The main reason India rejected an offer to build the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka' Southern Province, was the calculation that it did not make economic sense. This was proved right as the port hasn’t made meaningful profits to date.

In 2012, two years after it opened, while Hambantota port drew merely 34 ships, a whopping 3,667 ships berthed in the much older Colombo port.

Since then, the situation has somewhat improved. Now, Japanese, South Korean and Indian carmakers bring in vehicles into Sri Lanka through Hambantota. When fully completed, it will be the largest port in South Asia, serving ships sailing on the key route linking Far East, Southeast Asia and Oceania with the Middle East and Europe.

Accusations of China’s debt-trap diplomacy may or may not be true, but Sri Lanka’s failure to pay off the huge loans taken from the Chinese Export-Import Bank EXIM has meant it had to borrow more, and at higher interest rates.

China is also building the Colombo Port City project on 269 hectares of reclaimed land off Colombo Port for USD 1.4 billion. It will house a Special Economic Zone where any currency (read yuan) can operate. The zone will be exempt from some legal and constitutional oversight otherwise applicable to everyone in Sri Lanka.

China's military advantage

Colombo says the SEZ will attract Foreign Direct Investment and provide jobs to 200,000 locals, but the data has been challenged by critics. President Rajapakse said the Port City will be a "gateway to South Asia" and “become a key service hub to this region”.

It will have an international finance center, a la Dubai and Singapore, as well as world-class residential and commercial facilities.

The final lease agreement signed by Sri Lanka forbids military activity in Hambantota. But there is no way that China – given its history of not sticking to commitments -- will abide by this stipulation in the long run.

Using both Hambantota and the facilities in Colombo, the Chinese Navy can not only secure its own trade but disrupt, delay or destroy trade and energy flow to its perceived foes. Both Hambantota and Colombo have been merged with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

When then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited Sri Lanka in 2014, a Chinese submarine made a dramatic appearance in Colombo, a statement to the world.

Although China has built some 35 ports around the world, mostly in Africa, Europe and the Far East, it knew that its construction in Sri Lanka will be close to a country with which it still has a violent border row.

India needs to introspect

The Indian establishment will have to undertake a thorough autopsy of its neighborhood foreign policy to know how things have come to such a pass vis-à-vis Sri Lanka. Many in Sri Lanka still cannot forgive India for training and arming Tamil militants over long years.

And when Sri Lanka launched its military onslaught that crushed the LTTE, India did not provide the military aid Colombo desired. China and Pakistan filled the gap.

Like Nepal and Bangladesh, Sri Lanka too has its share of grievances against India. Sri Lankans point out that while Colombo was pressured in the 80s over its Israeli links; New Delhi made up with Tel Aviv when it wanted to.

One thing is clear: The Rajapaksas would have certainly known that the Chinese involvement in Hambantota and Colombo would rile India. Yet they went ahead. As Sri Lanka has clasped China’s strategic hands a la Pakistan, India will have to carefully calibrate its moves. India-Sri Lanka ties were not rosy at the best of times; they have now entered a potentially rough patch.

(The author is a veteran journalist who writes on diplomacy and politics. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached on ranjini17@hotmail.com)