The China-Lanka Conundrum

 

There was much consternation in India over the Chinese spy ship docking in Sri Lanka. India expressed its security concerns over berthing the ship at the Hambantota port. The truth is that symbolism triumphed over substance

By Col R Hariharan | Columns | India Legal | August 26, 2022 https://www.indialegallive.com/column-news/china-spy-ship-yuan-wang5-sri-lanka-hambantota-india-pla/

The controversial visit of China’s “spy ship” Yuan Wang-5 to Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port from August 16 to 22 is perhaps Sri Lanka’s most commented news story, next only to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s escape in stealth from the island-nation a few weeks earlier. The reason is not far to seek; the research ship belongs to the PLA’s 5th branch – the Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) created in December 2015 to carry out space, cyber and electronic warfare. The ship is equipped with advanced electronic equipment, sensors and antennae to assist PLA’s land-based stations in tracking satellite, rocket and ICBM launches within a range of 750 km.

Sri Lanka’s foreign affairs originally allowed the vessel to dock in Hambantota from August 11 to 17. India expressed its security concerns over berthing the ship in Hambantota as soon as reports indicated that the ship was heading to the Sri Lankan port. The US also had expressed its security concerns. Perhaps in deference to India’s concerns, the ministry in a message to the Chinese embassy asked the visit be delayed until further consultations. The Chinese embassy clarified that the maritime research vessel’s visit was for replenishment and refuelling and did not pose a threat to any security or economic interests. It eventually succeeded in pressuring Sri Lanka’s defence ministry to allow the research vessel to berth in Hambantota port from August 16 to 22, after laying down conditions that it would switch off its tracking equipment.

The media pundits in India went to town with analyses of how the ship’s berthing in Hambantota would compromise the security of our naval bases and satellite launch sites and missile launches. The plain truth is Yuan Wang-5 is capable of carrying out all these actions even without docking in Hambantota port. Many analyses across global media had been cautioning the US of China overtaking it as a strategic power. These analyses were basically revisiting the bogey of China’s growing military prowess in the Indo-Pacific.

Social media castigated Sri Lanka for its “ungratefulness” to India, which had gone all out to lend a helping hand in times of Sri Lanka’s economic distress, unlike China. Some critics called it a violation of the India-Sri Lanka Accord 1987, though the Accord has no specific clause forbidding the berthing of warships of other countries in Sri Lanka ports in peacetime. Moreover, Sri Lanka had been repeatedly reassuring India at various levels that it would not allow the use of its soil to pose a security threat to India.

The controversy over Yuan Wang-5’s visit is timed to draw attention away from growing India-Sri Lanka relations, which are on the apogee. Probably it is also aimed at reminding Sri Lanka that it cannot afford to ignore China’s interests, now embedded in the body politic of the island-nation. Moreover, for some time now, Sri Lanka is in talks with India at multiple levels to upgrade its transactional relations into a strategic relationship. These efforts have encouraged India to extend all out support to the people of Sri Lanka to meet their essential economic and energy requirements after the country went bankrupt. India’s support has continued, in spite of political uncertainties in the country after the unceremonious exit of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the ascent of Ranil Wickremesinghe as president.

It is worthwhile to examine the Yuan Wang-5 issue in the larger context of the strategic dynamics of the Indo-Pacific. Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician and process philosopher considers “symbolism as no mere idle fantasy or corrupt degeneration. It is inherent in the very texture of human life.” His words: “there is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us” have great relevance in understanding the substance behind China’s acts of symbolism.

India celebrated Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav—75 years of India’s independence—on August 15. On that day, the Xinjiang command conducted live-fire drills near the LAC with a “new type of surface-to-air missile” at an altitude of more than 4,500 metres (14,760 feet). A report in the South China Morning Post quoted military observers to say the weapons appeared to be HQ-17A air defence missiles, part of an integrated system that can fit in a single vehicle. Yuan Wang-5 steaming into Hambantota a day after India’s Independence Day is also symbolic of China enforcing its writ in Sri Lanka despite India’s security concerns.   

More than all this, Yuan Wang-5 is a demonstration of PLASSF capability as part of China’s power projection in space and cyberspace. The SSF is also designed to coordinate intelligence sharing and operations in the informatized battlefields in real time. Informatization has been the mantra of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ever since PLA thinkers drew many lessons from their observations of the US Gulf War (1991) and Iraq War (2003). In their assessment, the US used effective coordinated employment of global media, international law, and other psychological warfare techniques. The use of these techniques collectively referred to as “three warfares” could enhance results as military operations became more and more dependent on information technology tools. 

The concept of “three warfares” was incorporated in the PLA Political Work Regulations for future conflicts in 2003. This has resulted in increased coordination of civil and military organs of state since then to get the best results of “three warfares”.

The timing of the Yuan Wang-5 controversy is uncanny. On June 6, India successfully carried out the training launch of the intermediate range ballistic missile Agni-4 from APJ Abdul Kalam Island off Orissa under the aegis of the Strategic Forces Command. The visit of Yuan Wang-5 is perhaps China’s way of flaunting its capability to track India’s ICBM launches. A month later, PLA tested an advanced PHL Multiple Lau­nch Rocket System (MLRS) at an altitude of more than 5,300 metres in the Xinjiang Region.

India’s Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has been on a mission for some time to lay bare China’s double speak on matters related to India in many international forums. Only a month earlier, the 16th round of border talks between Corps Commanders of India and China ended in yet another stalemate. Last week in Bangkok, Jaishankar said the relationship between India and China is going through an “extremely difficult phase” after the Galwan incident in the Ladakh border in 2020. He emphasised that the Asian Century will not happen if the two neighbours could not join hands. “We very much hope that wisdom dawns on the Chinese side,” he said while replying to a question in Bangkok.

Now on a six-day tour of South America, Jaishankar said China has cast a shadow on bilateral ties by disregarding border pacts with India. He said the relationship cannot be a one-way street. “They are our neighbour and everybody wants to get along with their neighbour…But everybody wants to get along with their neighbour on reasonable terms. I must respect you and you must respect me,” he added. The EAM said “from our point of view, we’ve been very clear that if you have to build a relationship, then there has to be mutual respect. Each one will have their interests and we need to be sensitive to what the concerns are, of the other party.”

Sri Lanka is caught not only in the midst of muscle flexing between India and China in the Indian Ocean region, but it is also facing the flak of the strategic maelstrom blowing across the Indo-Pacific, after the visit of the US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan on August 2. President Xi Jinping had spoken to POTUS Joe Biden, a month earlier to prevent the visit. According to media reports, President Biden not only told Xi that he “could not oblige” as the US Congress was an independent body, but also warned the Chinese president against taking any “provocative and coercive” actions if the visit took place. Pelosi’s visit may be considered a big loss of face for Xi, particularly when he is poised to be re-elected as the CCP General Secretary in the next few months. The invectives China has used to condemn the US and its allies on this issue show that the stand-off over Taiwan is likely to continue for some time. We can expect the spill over of the continuing US-China confrontation in the Indian Ocean region in the coming months. It is imperative that China’s symbolic acts are studied to gauge the substance behind them to understand its intentions.

The writer is a retired military intelligence specialist on South Asia associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies

C3S One-Day Internaitonal Conference on Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka: Wickremesinghe in Presidential Avatar

Col R Hariharan

Sri Lanka Perspectives July 2022| South Asia Security Trends, August 2022 www.security-risk.com

Ninth of July 2022 would long be remembered in Sri Lanka as the day the three-month long ‘Aragalaya’ peoples protest movement succeeded in forcing their elected President Gotabaya to agree to resign on July 13. However, the President agreed to resign only after protestors forcibly occupied the President’s House and secretariat and laid siege to the prime minister’s Temple Tree residence on July 9. They forced him to flee from Sri Lanka to Maldives and later end up in Singapore. His resignation came by e-mail to the Speaker four days later from Singapore. His future continues to be as uncertain as the country clawing its way from bankruptcy.

The month also saw the change of fortune of Ranil Wickremesinghe, long time presidential aspirant, who never got elected.  Wickremesinghe was brought in as prime minister by President Rajapaksa after public protests on May 9 forced PM Mahinda Rajapaksa to quit and seek safe haven. On the fateful night of July 9 irate mobs set fire to PM Wickremesinghe’s private residence to punish him for his association with the President. It is ironic that the continuing Aragalaya protests have paved the way for PM Wickremesinghe to be elected president by majority of parliamentarians. In a secret ballot held on July 20, he secured 134 votes, with a comfortable margin of 52 votes over his nearest rival Dallas Alahapperama of SLPP. Dallas had wanted Rajapaksas to quit and apparently this had cost him the election, despite the support of the main opposition party SJB led by Sajith Premadasa.

Wickremesinghe’s victory is a demonstration of the influence wielded by the Rajapaksas in the present parliament, despite their absence.  President Wickremesinghe will resist any call for him to quit and serve till November 2024 when the next presidential poll is due. As he enjoys majority support in parliament, courtesy the shadowy influence of Rajapaksas, he will be in no hurry to call for a general election, as his detractors have demanded. It will be reasonable to suppose the Wickremesinghe government’s long arm of law will show no haste to book the Rajapaksas for the excess of the earlier government.

It is equally plausible that the cases against the Rajapaksas hurriedly closed during the last three years may not be reopened at least till the next election. After all, under Wickremesinghe’s watch as PM during the Yahapalana government days prosecutions against the Rajapaksas were never completed. The effort to safeguard the interests of the Rajapaksas is evident from the cabinet spokesman Bandula Gunawardena’s statement that Gotabaya Rajapaksa went to Singapore through formal channels. He said it was not accurate to say that he was hiding. In view of this, the spokesman’s statement that he expected Gotabaya to return to Sri Lanka from Singapore has to be taken with a pinch of salt.  

In short, the Rajapaksa fortunes may be down for some time, but not out. This was amply demonstrated by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who managed to bring back the Rajapaksa raj, after a short and troubled interregnum of only five years of opposition rule. Mahinda, the astute politician, may well be working now to find answers to the questions when and how to stage a political comeback.

The lingering influence of the Rajapaksas can stoke President Wickremesingh’s own desire to put down Aragalaya protests, which turned his private residence to ashes.  Even as Acting President, the first thing he did was to declare a state of emergency “in the interests of public security, the protection of public order and the maintenance of supplies and services essential to the life of the community" in the absence of President Rajapaksa. Later, curfew was again enforced to ensure the smooth conduct of the Presidential election on July 20. A power outage that blacked out the direct telecast of the swearing in ceremony of President Wickremesinghe a day later, triggered a police investigation. It dramatically depicted the troubles that the newly anointed president will be facing in gaining public confidence in the political process, lost in three months of Aragalaya protests.

This would explain President Wickremesinghe’s rather heavy-handed crackdown on protestors, using the army and the STF, to clear the President’s House and Secretariat occupied by them. The authorities have arrested Pathum Kerner, one the founders of the ‘GotaGoGama protests. Police are on the look out to arrest other leaders of the Aragalaya. They are searching several church premises to arrest Fr Amila Jeewantha Peiris, a Catholic priest and activist. Arrest warrants have also been issued to nab activists Lahiru Weerasekara and Venerable Tamipitiye Sugathananda when they failed to appear before the court to answer charges of unlawful assembly. Inter University Student Federation(IUSF) convenor Wasantha Mudalige, who is one of the brains behind the Aragalaya, has been served with a no foreign flight order.

Action is also in hand to intimidate digital journalists and block the social media sites which had stoked the flames of protest from shadowy domains. The Aragalaya protestors' sloganeering has now changed from GotaGoGama to GoHomeRanil as displayed in an artwork at the Galle Face promenade, after the police cleared the site of over three months of protest.

President Wickremesinghe has brought in the SLPP’s former leader of the House and long-time parliamentarian Dinesh Gunawardena as PM. His 21-member cabinet is largely composed of those who had served in the Rajapaksa government. This has drawn derisive comments of old wine in old bottle, with a new Wickremesinghe label. President Wickremesinghe and PM Gunawardena have started their rule with the inherited burden that brought down President Rajapaksa’s rule. For the common man it meant high inflation and cost of living, shortages, rationing of fuel, queues and attended nepotism, power cuts, restricted functioning of public offices and schools, cronyism, bribery and corruption. The President-PM pair have to not only overcome, but also outlive, their image tarnished by association with the Rajapaksas. This is probably a no-win situation for them as the present parliament is dominated by SLPP largely under the influence of the Rajapaksas.

The President will probably make his policy statement in his throne speech when the Parliament is reconvened on August 3. His policy thrust is likely to focus on forming an all-party administration to help the country cruise through the current economic and political crises. This is a tall order as major parties have their own agenda and interpretation of the all party government. Finding a common ground among them is likely to be the President’s number one political challenge.

Equally important for him is to strike an equation with the younger generation and middle class, who form the core of Aragalaya protests. Their demands may seem to be irreconcilable. But the President has to find a middle ground to bring them to the political mainstream. Well known entrepreneur and philanthropist JRD Tata said “Future belongs to the young. We must not only trust them with the responsibility but must thrust it upon them whilst they are still young and full of energy, zest, hope and even illusions. However heart-breaking it may be to ourselves; we must make way for the new generations even when we feel we are still in our prime.”  That should be the mantra of President Wickremesinghe.

Perhaps, this is the first time in South Asia, a largely peaceful peoples protest has succeeded in forcing a leadership change. Of course, such changes have taken place in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, mostly with military intervention or meddling with the constitution. So, Sri Lankans should feel proud and confident of the future; their energies should focus on using the tools of democracy to create an environment conducive for political and economic recovery. They have no other option. The onus to create such an environment largely rests on President Wickremesinghe’s conduct.

[Col R Hariharan, a retired MI specialist on South Asia and terrorism, served as the head of intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka 1987-90. He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies. Email: haridirect@gmail.com  Website: https://col.hariharan.info]