India has not turned a blind eye to the developments in its neighbourhood, nor has it stopped participating in events over there.
Much is happening in India’s immediate South Asian, Indian Ocean neighbourhood, both on the political and diplomatic/geo-strategic fronts. However, political India is tied down to demonetisation, and the Indian strategic community to ‘surgical strikes’, Jammu & Kashmir and Pakistan — with no time and inclination to look elsewhere in the neighbourhood. All of it could have consequences for India’s foreign policy, especially the ‘Neighbourhood First’ approach, propounded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the commencement of his term two-and-half years back.
Needless to point out, Sri Lanka and Maldives are India’s immediate neighbours in the Indian Ocean. Modi made a landmark three-nation visit of Sri Lanka, Seychelles and Mauritius in March 2015, and had to leave out Maldives out of the itinerary, owing to domestic political situation. Nothing much has been heard from the Indian side on the necessary follow-up on these fronts, which is of interest and concern to India from the medium and long-term perspectives.
It’s not as if India has turned a blind eye to developments in these countries, nor has it stopped participating in events over there. Recently, Indian Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba was in Sri Lanka on a five-day visit, when he also delivered the key-note address at the prestigious, post-war annual ‘Galle Dialogue’ in end-November. The visit was aimed at “consolidating and enhancing maritime ties” between the two countries, an official statement had said earlier. Before Adm. Lanba, National Security Advisor (NSA) A.K. Doval had delivered the keynote address at the 2014 edition of Galle Dialogue — only months after the Modi Government had come to power.
‘External interference’
What has gone mostly unnoticed in the past week/month or so is the greater activity on the part of non-regional state players, pertaining to Sri Lankan affairs. In what looks mostly out-of-turn, Chinese Ambassador in Colombo, Yi Xialiang, said in Colombo recently that his nation would not entertain ‘external interference’ in the affairs of Sri Lanka. Independently, and around the time, Russian envoy, Alexander A. Karchava, recalled for the benefit of local audience(s) how Moscow had stood firm with Sri Lanka on UNHRC-related ‘accountability probe’ issues and resolutions in Geneva.
This is not the first time in recent weeks that Amb. Yi has talked in public on Sri Lankan affairs. If he was referring to the Indian neighbour of Sri Lanka, he did not mention it. There is also the distinct possibility, China now wants to be counted in as a South Asian nation — as and when it suits the same. For long, friends of China in the now-defunct SAARC have been pushing the case for making the nation a member of the South Asian organisation.
If Amb. Yi was referring to the US, obviously China too as an extra-regional player like the other, was seeking to make its political presence and ‘initiatives’, if any, a fait accompli for the future. If left uncontested, it can have consequences, though not all of them unpleasant for the host in particular. India cannot be taking a similar view of the neighbourhood situation — not on what Sri Lanka should do or not do, but precisely on what was going on, and was likely to happen, in an area of immediate external security implications and concerns for itself.
In this context, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s recent reiteration that the US under the upcoming Trump dispensation would continue to be the ‘elephant in the room’ as far as the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) was concerned. Earlier, he had made the reference in his inaugural address to Galle Dialogue 2015, and made it clear that none could wish away the American presence and influence. In the more recent instance, he was obviously seeking to silence expectation that a Trump establishment could well begin dis-engaging from the region.
Incidentally, not very long ago, Amb. Yi had joined issue with Sri Lankan Finance Minister, Ravi Karunanayake, on the relative cost of Chinese loans, which the latter had, more-than-once, said was on the high side. The issue was allowed to die a natural death after Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary, Esala Weerakoon, spoke to Amb. Li on telephone, asking not to go to the media on what essentially were bilateral affairs.
In doing so, Weerakoon and the Sri Lankan Government handled the issue with the sensitivity that bilateral relations required. The alternative might have been for the Foreign Secretary to summon the Chinese envoy, and register Colombo’s views in the matter. Minister Ravi too has stopped talking. Incidentally, no one made any big issue of the same in Sri Lankan Parliament, either, then or afterwards. Noticeably, the local media also played down the issue once Weerakoon had spoken to Amb. Yi.
Major defence partner
In the midst of all this, news got around that Sri Lankan President Maithiripala Sirisena would be visiting Moscow, for what the local media described as a ‘pow-vow’ with Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in March 2017. US Vice President elect, Mike Pence, spoke in between to Sirisena, inviting him to visit the US, to improve bilateral relations.
Given that the Trump administration reportedly does not have too much of initial reservations to working with Putin’s Moscow, and has only specific concerns about a growing China, what it means for Sri Lanka, or for the larger Indian neighbour, too, remains to be seen. It’s another matter how the bilateral agreement, making India a ‘major defence partner’ of the US and signed during the lame duck presidency of Barack Obama would play out in the coming weeks, months and years.
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