The new Sri Lankan government must do the tightrope walk between China and India
Dhanuka Dickwella
Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock
—Will Rogers
Living next to an emerging global power while closely coordinating with its arch-rival is no easy feat. This has been the fate of Sri Lankan leaders ever since the region was rid of colonization. The cost of this diplomatic quagmire is unprecedented. Sri Lanka had to fight a brutal civil war for three long decades due to colossal mismanagement of the diplomatic playfield other than its core reasons.
The end of the war gave much-needed manoeuvring space for Colombo to resist New Delhi’s undue pressure. The death of Prabhakaran also marked the end of India’s leverage over Sri Lanka to a great extent. The newly cleared space was used to establish a solid relationship with Beijing. Instead of a pragmatic approach, the Tamil-centric approach was what the Congress governments in India adopted for Sri Lanka. This short-sighted blunder which mainly served its voter bases in southern India was instrumental in driving Colombo into Beijing’s arms. But things changed with the emergence of Narendra Modi as a strongman and a nationalist leader who saw India beyond a regional power. With his rise to power, the regional political landscape too saw a dramatic change. The China-friendly Mahinda Rajapaksha rule was ousted with the tacit support of India asserting its regional influence as well as re-establishing its sway within certain Sri Lankan voter groups.
The post-Mahinda Rajapaksha leaders got the Indian memo quite well. Antagonising the neighbour was too costly and Beijing clearly could do nothing beyond making a loud bang in the media. The result was the strict adoption of the time-tested flirtations with both powers while committing to none. Playing both sides has since developed into an undeclared foreign policy or a doctrine in the Sri Lankan diplomatic manoeuvring. Hugging Modi while winking at Xi Jinping worked fine.
However, Sri Lanka’s playing both sides had to be done with a degree of scrutiny, calibration, and patience. Each power’s sensitivities had to be understood and acknowledged. The classic example is about foreign naval vessels. Colombo port has frequent naval visitors from destroyers to aircraft carriers from navies around the world. While India made no fuss when Pakistan Navy’s vessels made port calls on Colombo, the same was not true for Chinese vessels. Sri Lanka recognised that allowing Chinese oceanographic research ships with unique abilities to spy and survey the ocean beds was a third rail that angered and rattled the nerves of India. Other than putting India on pins and damaging diplomatic relations, those classes of ships did not serve any real purpose for Sri Lanka. Thus, Sri Lanka skilfully adopted a moratorium whereby the state of Sri Lanka undertook a voluntary position not to allow a foreign vessel belonging to a sensitive class to its harbours. The only damage and the consequence were the infringement of its sovereignty as well as not being treated as an equal sovereign by the big brother. But such is real politics and in the long run addressing India’s sensitivities in a tailormade fashion has more upside potential than downside risks.
But after the last Sri Lankan election there is a new sheriff in town. The new administration has no previous governing experience, nor they have long developed personal relations with regional leaders. Their policy is inconsistent regarding India and China. The paradigm change is from staunch anti-Indianism to India-friendly as well as from lambasting Chinese investments as debt traps to pro-Chinese transformations.
When the current president Anura Kumara Dissanayaka popularly known as AKD took to the helm of power in Colombo, he too followed his predecessors. First a courteous, well-orchestrated diplomatic tour to Delhi. His warm, state welcome coupled with an escort by Modi with a hand around AKD’s waist sparked much excitement in Sri Lanka. Some argued Modi portrayed his power position and made the moment to showcase who is in charge and who is the subordinate.
AKD’s party has been a staunch anti-Indian political entity that burnt down anything Indian in the Eighties when India forced its hand by forcefully sending the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to Sri Lanka. Although anyone can argue the IPKF was sent by an agreement with Colombo’s government, not a single Sri Lankan wished for an Indian Army to be on Sri Lankan soil back then other than Indian political elites. This anti-Indian stance of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) could be observed even in post-war Sri Lanka. Every time India tried to acquire any strategically important assets in Sri Lanka, the JVP-led National People’s Power (NPP) coalition went all out calling for protests and strikes. From jointly developing the strategically located oil tank farm in Trincomalee to Trinco harbour development to Adani-led windfarms project, the JVP-led NPP protested day in and day out. But soon after the India tour of AKD as the newly elected president, there was a change of heart. Now his energy minister suddenly sees the value of the projects as well as is in full discussion with India over more meaningful connectivity. Adani’s project might very well be inaugurated soon. All this directional change and welcoming the Indian cooperation was seen as a new diplomatic approach of AKD’s government. An India-friendly Colombo was what the analyst predicted. India seemed to have just cemented its dominant diplomatic position over Sri Lanka until it was not.
The Sri Lankan president undertook his second diplomatic mission to India’s regional rival China in January 2025. The welcome was as expected—warm, courteous, and respectful with a lot of media coverage. Embracing the classic ‘playing both sides doctrine’, AKD solidified his relationship with China with several bilateral agreements and a whopping USD3.8 billion deal to develop an oil refinery in the Hambantota port. Although this refinery was a project in discussion from the Rajapaksha era and was agreed upon during the tenure of President Wickramasinghe, it was AKD who put ink to the agreement. Thus emerged the hero of the day. Chinese investors also showed interest in propping up Sri Lanka’s economy by investing USD10 billion in various sectors. The only laughable matter is that it was the AKD-led JVP, NPP coalition that went to town promoting the ‘Chinese Debt Trap’ theory. Suddenly, the Chinese money has been elevated from a debt trap to a strategic investment. Such policy contradictions are commonplace and the new reality in NPP politics.
China’s commitments, undertaking to Sri Lanka even amidst Indian pressure, and skilful diplomatic manoeuvering only show how geo-economically Sri Lanka is important for China in its long march towards becoming a global superpower. The current government is Marxist in its core and has a fixation to state control of the economy. They have been reversing the privatisation of state assets that turned into colossal liabilities. In every sense, their modality is on par with that of Beijing. Do they have a preference over the other? Within just 100 days in power, one can never say that.
We are headed towards the most crucial phase of a geopolitical collision of great powers. An unpredictable, highly anti-Chinese Washington, aggressively expanding BRICS, assertive India, and an unstoppable China will all come into contact through proxies as well as economic, and diplomatic showdown directly. Although Sri Lanka is just a tiny piece in this game of chess, its location places every Knight, Bishop, Queen, and King on the board in check. Neither the Americans nor the Indians want to see the most strategic island in the entirety of the Indian Ocean become a Chinese playground at any cost. So far the government has avoided walking into diplomatic minefields except for the Prime minister’s scandalous Freudian slip of calling China as Republic of China instead of the People’s Republic of China in front of the Chinese chief diplomat. However, with a history of inconsistent policies and positions of the current government with regards to India and China, Sri Lankans can only hope for them to not overplay the ‘playing both sides doctrine’ and bring the unnecessary ire of regional partners.