By Kalinga Seneviratne Courtesy Eurasia Review

At the height of Sri Lanka’s debt crisis two years ago, India’s External Affairs Minister Dr S. Jaishankar gave a talk at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University on India’s ‘Look East’ policy. I asked him during Q and A session whether India and China could cooperate to get the new BRICS bank to bail out Sri Lanka?

He smiled and told me that if India and China can cooperate, they can bail out more countries, not only Sri Lanka. Then he went on to explain the border problems in the Himalayas and China’s activities in disputed Kashmir as a barrier. But, to keep the Indian Ocean peaceful it is essential that India and China cooperate to assist Sri Lanka, and not allow outside powers to destabilise the Asian region.

Sri Lanka’s evolving political landscape following the historic elections on 21 September that brought Marxist-leaning President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to power open new opportunities for both powers, and they should not see it as a competition.

Dr S Jaishankar was quick off the mark, visiting Colombo 4 October. A statement issued by his ministry after the meeting emphasised the advancement of bilateral cooperation based on India’s Neighbourhood First” policy to facilitate Indian investments and job creation in Sri Lanka”. The contagious issue between the two countries, agreed over three decades ago, regarding the implementation of the 13th amendments to the constitution to devolve more power to Tamil dominated north-east was mentioned as a distance last issue in the statement. The Tamil issue, which dominated election platforms for the past three decades, went missing this time, as people focused on anti-corruption and grassroots development.

A new chapter in China-Sri Lanka relations

A day earlier, Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Qi Zhenhong, delivering a congratulatory message from the Chinese President Xi Jinping referred to a new chapter in China-Sri Lanka relations starting on a journey of mutual progress and prosperity. The Ambassador predicted the relationship would continue to gain great momentum on a higher level and he has told journalist after meeting the president without mincing his words that it would counter the disturbing global order with hegemony, high-handedness, and bullying being prevalent”.

The test will come right after the 14 November parliamentary elections when the new government will have to take a stand, publicly, on the current year-long ban on visits by foreign research vessels imposed in January 2024. It was meant to bar Chinese research vessels traversing Sri Lankan waters, under relentless pressure from India and the US. Sri Lanka is expected to lift the ban to improve relations with China and under current circumstances, with India unhappy with the US’s undermining of their interests in Bangladesh and unrelenting pressure on New Delhi to curtail economic ties with Russia, India may not object to such a policy shift from Colombo.

It is important to note that Dissanayake’s victory is a result of a ‘colour revolution’ that is home-grown and not driven and funded by western donors” such as the one in 2015 when pro-China President Mahinda Rajapakse was defeated in a shock election verdict. It was followed by a chain of US dignitaries, including the then US Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting Sri Lanka, trying to steer the country towards US geopolitical interests in the Indian Ocean.

Dissanayake’s party JVP—which is the leading component of the now ruling NPP (National Peoples Power) alliance—is a Marxist party that was inspired by the Chinese revolution when they mounted armed uprisings in 1971 and 1988-89 to topple the government. In 1971 at the height of the JVP insurrection, then socialist regime of Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike expelled the North Korean ambassador from Colombo (but did not accuse China), and India stepped in with providing military helicopters to help put down the rebellion as JVP held police stations and territory in the rural south.

Now part of a democratic people-power alliance, JVP has drifted away from that old extremist Marxist ideology. JVP killed intellectuals, artistes, public servants, media people and community leaders who were not supportive of their ideology during their 1988-89 uprising. But today the broad rainbow alliance NPP has formed includes them, and many of them are expected to be elected to parliament in the November elections.

NPP, though not publicly stated, could easily find inspiration in China’s development model of socialist democratic capitalism. Beijing should take note that NPP’s socio-economic development platform resonates well with China’s ‘Global Development Initiative’ with a focus on collective development rights.

India would have a lot to offer to Sri Lanka

On the other hand, India would have a lot to offer to Sri Lanka, utilising India’s expertise in IT-driven grassroots development and its management expertise. NPP’s anti-corruption drive especially in cleaning up the public services could be assisted by India—where e-governance structures have expanded rapidly across India in recent years—assisting in reducing corruption in delivery of government services. Sri Lanka’s universities need assistance in curriculum development—not branch campuses—and India’s higher education sector could help in working with Sri Lankan academia in  updating, especially in IT, management and sciences.

Inspiration for a non-confronting geopolitical architecture in the Indian Ocean can be drawn from the 1970s when Mrs Bandaranaike had very close ties with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and China’s Prime Minister Zhou Enlai. In the mid-1970s, China built and gifted the Bandaranaike Memorial International Convention Hall in Colombo to host the 1976 Non-Aligned Movement’s Heads of State Summit, in which Mrs Gandhi was the main billing. China had no qualms about it. The Summit called for a New World Economic Order that will be fair to all.

There is something called the Paris Club of creditors that is part of that old order, to which Sri Lanka has been submitting itself to for aid and debt reforms for decades. This is a club dominated by the West and Japan, and it has exceeded its shelf life. It is their remedies implemented via IMF that has brought economic trauma for ordinary Sri Lankans and catapulted Dissanayake to the presidency.

Perhaps it’s time China and India form an alternative to that club for advice and policy guidance to help Sri Lanka to get over the economic crisis. Unlike in the 1970s, the large and expanding Indian and Chinese markets should be a part of the solution. This could be a template to adopt within the BRICS framework in future with Brazil, South Africa and Saudi Arabia joining in.

Both India and China say they are the voice for the Global South to reform the international economic architecture. Sri Lanka provides a test bed for what Dr Jaishankar was hinting at responding to my question two years ago. It is crucial that the two Asian powers assist Sri Lanka to make this socio-economic grassroots-driven development a success that could reverberate across the Global South.