By BREE FENG JANUARY 9, 2015 8:33 AM January 9, 2015 8:33 am Comment NYT
Last January, Sri Lanka’s health minister, Maithripala Sirisena, joined his colleagues in toasting the Chinese New Year at a red-lantern-festooned gala featuring performances of the songs “Love My China” and “Mother Sri Lanka” and hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Colombo, the capital.
But today, with Mr. Sirisena the surprise victor in Sri Lanka’s presidential election, Chinese leaders are likely to be watching with some unease to see if he follows through on a campaign promise to scrap a major Chinese investment project.
China in recent years has become a leading investor and trading partner for the strategically situated island nation, which is roughly 40 miles off the southeastern coast of India. President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was defeated in the vote, had welcomed Chinese investment. And China, which has been expanding its naval abilities and reach, seemed to have found a good friend in the Indian Ocean. But in the early hours of Friday, Mr. Rajapaksa was forced to admit defeat after results showed he was trailing his former aide.
When the presidential campaign began last year, Mr. Rajapaksa seemed headed for an easy victory. But the surprise defection of Mr. Sirisena and several other aides two months ago turned the election into a tight race, with the opposition criticizing Mr. Rajapaksa for placing family members in government posts and consolidating power.
More significantly for China, Mr. Sirisena, who was to be sworn in Friday evening, also took aim during his campaign at major foreign-backed investment projects — including one that President Xi Jinping personally inaugurated during his visit to the country in September. That $1.5 billion project, funded by China Communications Construction Company, would build a new port city on hundreds of acres of reclaimed land in Colombo. Crucially, the new port has been included in China’s “Maritime Silk Road,” one of two major foreign policy initiatives by Mr. Xi in 2013 envisioning a series of regional infrastructure and other projects that analysts say are aimed at bolstering China’s influence.
Mr. Sirisena and the incoming prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, said during the campaign that they would scuttle the Colombo Port City project, along with a planned Australian-backed casino. But the incoming leaders have also suggested that they were seeking balance and would not shun China altogether. In an interview published on Thursday, Mr. Wickremesinghe told The Hindustan Times, an Indian newspaper, that if his side won, Sri Lanka would seek better ties with India, “but that doesn’t mean we will be hostile to China.”
Anit Mukherjee, an assistant professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said on Friday, “It’s hard to take a guess” on whether Mr. Sirisena will follow through on his promises and cancel the two projects.
Given that Mr. Sirisena emphasized claims of corruption and nepotism against Mr. Rajapaksa, he “will be keen to distinguish and maintain his clean image,” Mr. Mukherjee said. “What we do know is that both deals will attract scrutiny, and if not outright cancellation, they will most probably be investigated for corruption.”
It would not be the first time in recent years that a large-scale Chinese project was abruptly canceled by a foreign leader seeking to build domestic support. In 2011, Myanmar’s president, Thein Sein, scrapped a major Chinese-funded dam project after it drew substantial protest.
On Friday, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei, said that China congratulated Sri Lanka on its elections and was “willing to make joint efforts with Sri Lanka to continue to promote the China-Sri Lanka strategic cooperative partnership.”
China has other large projects in the works in Sri Lanka, including a plan to turn the town of Hambantota into a major new port, as well as a $1.2 billion coal power plant that the state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua said would meet half of the country’s total demand. China’s Export-Import Bank says it has invested $1.6 billion in more than 20 projects in Sri Lanka, mostly involving shipping and transportation.
During Mr. Xi’s recent visit, the two sides also signed an agreement to establish a second Confucius Institute, one of the Chinese language and cultural centers that have come under criticism at some Western universities because of their connections to the Chinese government.
China’s growing footprint in South Asia has worried India, which has significant cultural and historical ties with Sri Lanka. In particular, New Delhi has expressed concern about Beijing’s increasing naval abilities, worries that were exacerbated when two Chinese submarines docked in Colombo last year for the first time.
Sri Lankan officials have suggested that they had no choice but to turn to China as a partner. Mr. Rajapaksa has said that he first offered the Hambantota project to India, which he said turned it down.
Mr. Mukherjee said that he believed there would be no “major tectonic shifts” in ties between Sri Lanka and China, but that Mr. Sirisena might, “without rejecting Chinese investments, bring about a correction on Sri Lanka’s seeming ‘tilt’ towards China.”
“The most likely outcome is that Chinese military activity in the island state, like the recent visits of its submarines, will be curtailed,” he said. “This will, of course, be welcomed by the Indians.”
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