Rajapaksa says Sri Lanka no pearl on China’s string Tuesday, 31 January 2012 22:43

COLOMBO: President Mahinda Rajapaksa was emphatic: China’s presence in Sri Lanka is strictly business, and not political.

Challenged on speculation that China financed and built the $1.4bn Mahinda Rajapaksa port on Sri Lanka’s south coast so it could sneak a naval base into India’s backyard, Rajapaksa laughed and said his giant neighbour had not complained.

“No one has said anything to us, not India, not even the US. Even the US, the British and India are now inviting China to come and invest,” he said yesterday.

Located just off of India’s southern tip, the island of 21m has become a visible front in the cold war between the Asian giants, where mutual suspicion crossbred with commercial ambition have produced a construction arms race of sorts.

“They try to match each other. A coal plant on one side of the country by the Chinese, another by the Indians on the other side. A port in the south by the Chinese, a port in the north by the Indians,” said a European diplomat based in Colombo.

Sri Lanka’s location astride an ancient and lucrative trade route in the Indian Ocean makes it of strategic commercial and military interest to Washington, New Delhi and Beijing.

That, some analysts theorize, makes it a prime part of China’s so-called “String of Pearls” strategy to surround India and project its presence by setting up coaling stations under commercial auspices at port after port in the Indian Ocean.

So far, the weapons of influence have been financial: India and China have both funded huge chunks of Rajapaksa’s $6bn post-war overhaul of roads, railways, ports and power plants.

Reuters

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