Colombo’s deferral of the port of call by Chinese ship Is an act of irrational appeasement?

Small countries cannot insulate themselves from the systemic forces of a great power rivalry unfolding in their neighbourhood. But, with a little bit of common sense, they can make sure that they would not become willing captives of that competitive power dynamic.

However, what Sri Lanka resorted to, last week by abruptly deferring the visit by the Chinese research and survey vessel Yuan Wang 5, was the escapist fallacy. And by doing so, it unwittingly became a willing captive of the power rivalry.

In a ‘third-person’ note, the Foreign Ministry informed the Chinese embassy in Colombo that the ministry wishes to request that the arrival of the vessel Yuan Wang 5 in Hambantota to be deferred until further consultations are made on the matter. The original approval was granted on July 12. Predictable enough, it created more problems than it solved, triggering a fresh diplomatic crisis with Beijing.

The Chinese embassy sought an urgent meeting with their Sri Lankan counterpart. The officials in Beijing intervened to cancel a promotional campaign commissioned by the Sri Lankan embassy in Beijing on a Chinese social media site. Strains in the relationship with Beijing were all too visible. For China, it was a loss of face that Colombo deferred indefinitely an agreed visit by a PLA Navy vessel due to Indian opposition. 
Worst still, it was perfectly a customary visit, one among around 50- 60 foreign naval vessels that made a port of call in the Sri Lankan ports every year. A majority of these vessels are of the Indian Navy and Coast Guard. In March, this year Indian Navy’s Western Fleet, INS Chennai and INS Teg, made a port call at Colombo. Previously, in October, six ships of the Indian Navy’s first training squadron arrived in Colombo and Trincomalee ports. Among other foreign naval vessels to make a port of call in Sri Lankan ports this year are French, Japanese, Bangladeshi and Germany. 

Understandably, Sri Lanka had a hard time rationalising how the visit by the Chinese vessel is different from other visits. Thus, if it stuck to the faulty rationale of the deferral, that itself would have set a dangerous policy precedent. Indians would have expected the future visits by the Chinese vessels, and perhaps by extension those of the Pakistani Navy, to be treated similarly.  That could have limited Sri Lanka’s foreign policy choices significantly. Also, irrational appeasement tends to create further expectations, creating a cycle of appeasement, which over time would result in the surrender of a good deal of sovereignty. 

Ad-hoc, reactive and patently stupid policy decisions are a bane of the foreign policy of Sri Lanka. That occurs due to the personalization of the foreign policy in the ideological and personal preferences and short-term calculations of the political leadership.

Finally, the gravity of its misgivings dawned on the government. The government granted a fresh approval for the Chinese vessel to enter the Hambantota Port on August 16 (today).  It would be docked there for a week for replenishment. The decision averted a major strain on Sri Lanka’s relations with China, which like it or not, has evolved over the past 15 years as a key pillar of the foreign policy and economic strategy of Sri Lanka. Relations of such import should not be placed at the mercy of the whims and fancies of political leaders and bureaucrats. They should be founded and nurtured on coherent and reciprocal principles and traditions.

Beijing is the largest bilateral lender which accounts for 10% of the country’s US$ 51 billion foreign debt. Its cooperation in the restructuring of sovereign debt is sine quo non for Sri Lanka to obtain bridging financing from the IMF. (Despite the reservations by the pundits over the Chinese commitment to Paris club principles, of which China is not a member, Beijing mediated to restructure Zambia’s US$18 billion external debt, of which China holds a third). The Chinese also have deep pockets and made a substantial investment in Sri Lanka. Some of the key Chinese investments such as the Colombo Port City and the Hambantota export processing zone could be engines of economic growth under the right economic conditions.

Captive of Indo-China rivalry

The government’s decision to defer the arrival of the Chinese vessel was meant to assuage mild Indian concerns, much of which were highlighted by the media commentators. Whether New Delhi and Washington officially communicated strong opposition is not known. In response to inquiries by some electronic media, the Indian High Commission said it had decided to refrain from commenting on the topic. Whether the political leadership in Colombo voluntarily caved in to score brownie points is another concern. Remember the fiasco over the suspension of Colombo Port City? 

India and China are locked in a protracted contest, defined by their geography, disputed borders and power aspirations.  Their great power rivalry acquires additional intensity as China expands outward, commensurate to its newfound economic and military power. Smaller states that reside in their shared neighbourhood are increasingly feeling the systemic heat. The Sino-India bilateral competition is now evolving into power alignments, bringing in like-minded nations, America, Japan, and Australia, to balance China’s growing heft in the region. 
True that Sri Lanka cannot ignore Indian security concerns in its neighbourhood. However, nor should it define its whole existence on these concerns.  Because that would trap Sri Lanka within an expansive and maximalist version of Indian interests in the region. 

India’s South Asia policy

India’s neighbourhood policy comes in two iterations: One is the historical construct of the British Raj. That is expansive, maximalist and zero-sum. None other than Lord Curzon of Kedleston, the early 20th-century Viceroy of India -most modern-day Indian strategists faithfully quote him- encapsulated British India’s grand strategy: “On the west, India must exercise a predominant influence over the destinies of Persia and Afghanistan; on the north, it can veto any rival in Tibet; on the north-east and east it can exert great pressure upon China, and is one of the guardians of the autonomous existence of Siam. On the high seas, it commands routes to Australia and to the Chinese seas.”

n order to defend India’s borders, the British Raj expanded as far as the Gulf of Aden in the West, and Malacca in the East, and built an extensive network of buffer states, turning Afghanistan, Sikkim, Bhutan and Nepal into protectorates.  

At the independence of India, its new elites adopted British Raj’s grand strategy, considered South Asia and the Indian Ocean region as its sphere of influence, and renewed agreements with its buffer states. K.M. Pannikar, a pioneering strategic thinker of Independent India proposed an India-led collective security system for South East Asia.

Jawaharlal Nehru, being a proponent of non-alignment was less vocal about India’s geopolitical ambitions. Eventually, the Raj foreign policy was reframed as the Indira doctrine, India’s own version of Monroe doctrine under his daughter Indira. The heydays of the Indira doctrine were India’s most insular years as a statist central planned economy.

The second iteration of India’s neighbourhood policy is what is permissible within India’s actual power capabilities, and reasonable within existing global norms and conduct of international affairs.

The second iteration became increasingly dominant in India’s foreign policy after the country liberalized its economy in 1992 and resultant prosperity. The subtle nudging of Modi’s neighbourhood first policy is more in line with the second iteration.

In the 2010s, India became increasingly comfortable with the Chinese economic presence in its neighbourhood, in part due to its growing self-confidence, as well as growing economic interdependency with China.

 However, the bilateral relationship strained after a deadly clash in the Himalayas. At the same time, America’s rebalancing in the Asia Pacific has opened new avenues for containing Beijing. Hence the desire to push back.

Weak States

Permissive conditions created by the weaker neighbourhood states are a bonus. Bankrupt Sri Lanka is a case in point. The Indian lifeline to Sri Lanka amounts to US$ 3.8 billion.  Colombo’s vulnerability creates conditions for India to push a more maximalist posture of its neighbourhood policy. The latest episode is one such example.
The policymakers in Colombo should be able to pick genuine Indian security concerns from its expansive geostrategic designs. Geo politics is zero-sum; so are great power relations. And the Indian media is loud and their geopolitical analysts are hawkish. Colombo’s policymakers should not be overly influenced by every other commentator who fumes at the sight of Chinese power. That is a reality that India has to live with.
Overreaction would complicate Sri Lanka’s relations with the two competing  powers. Also, if Colombo willingly submits, India would gladly re-enact the grand strategy of the British Raj. That would reduce Sri Lanka to a de-facto protectorate.

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