By Su­pun Dias
De­fence Sec­re­ta­ry Go­ta­baya Ra­ja­pak­sa is visiting the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na to strength­en de­fence ties be­tween the two coun­tries.His vis­it comes soon af­ter Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Xi Jinp­ing vis­ited Sri Lan­ka last week.  Mr. Ra­ja­pak­sa met Chi­na's Cen­tral Mili­ta­ry Com­mis­sion Vice Chair­man Xu Qi­liang yes­ter­day.
Gen­er­al Qi­liang hailed the close re­la­tion­ship that Chi­na has with Sri Lan­ka and said the lead­er­ship of the two coun­tries showed a great im­por­tance of mili­ta­ry-to-mili­ta­ry ties. Chi­nese me­dia quo­ted Gen­er­al Qi­liang as say­ing that the Chi­nese mili­ta­ry was will­ing to strength­en prag­mat­ic co­op­er­a­tion in var­i­ous fields with the Sri Lan­kan mili­ta­ry. Mr. Ra­ja­pak­sa said Sri Lan­ka would con­tin­ue to work close­ly with Chi­na to strength­en mili­ta­ry ties be­tween the two coun­tries.