How Did China Trap Sri Lanka and Then Abandon it?

Sri Lanka has not calmed down after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled abroad, despite parliament's selection of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as interim president until the election of a new president in 2024.

Demonstrators emerged from presidential palaces and government headquarters, which they occupied last week. The rebels remained on the streets, completing the struggle they had begun and celebrating the removal of the Rajapaksa family, which ruled Sri Lanka in the manner of corrupt authoritarian imperial families.

The interim president, unwelcomed by the rebels because of his association with the fugitive president, fears chaos will prevail in the country.

The state is no longer able to provide for the basic needs of citizens. It does not have the money to buy food, medicine, or fuel to operate trains, power plants, and schools.

Protests in Sri Lanka against the Rajapaksa regime under the weight of a series of simultaneous and successive collapses led to the downfall of prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa's government in May 2022, after Sri Lanka defaulted for the first time in its history since it became an independent country.

The incursion of Sri Lankan demonstrators exacerbated the internal situation into the presidential residence in Colombo after the president fled to a military base and then traveled to the Maldives, where he boarded a Saudi Arabian Airlines plane, heading for Singapore.

 

Corrupt Family

Members of the Rajapaksa family have held public office in Sri Lanka for more than half a century.

The current generation of Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, both of whom were presidents, are descendants of Don David Rajapaksa, who held a strong position when Sri Lanka was under the control of the British Empire, while their father was deputy speaker of the Sri Lankan Parliament after the country's independence.

Many family members held high government positions. It can even be said that the family almost took over political power in Sri Lanka during this century.

In particular, Chinese influence spilled over into Sri Lanka in 2005, since the elder brother of fugitive President Mahinda Rajapaksa took office, intensifying his efforts to form a monoracial identity for a multi-ethnic country.

Mahinda used security pursuits, killings, and enforced concealment of opponents, including Muslims representing 10% of the population, and promoting him as a national hero, was able to crush the opposition and kill 40,000 LTTE.

The elite supported Mahinda's populist policy, supporting the expansion of Chinese influence in Sri Lanka, and China, known for its affinity with authoritarian and corrupt regimes, to expand its influence in South and East Asia.

The rapprochement between the two countries increased, following the arrival of President Xi Jinping in 2012, who considered Sri Lanka a "pearl" in the pearl chain, from islands and countries on the Belt and Road route and the crossing of ships between the Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

After Mahinda failed to hold office for a third term with a constitutional coup, he soon pushed his brother (Gotabaya) to the presidency in 2019 while retaining himself as prime minister and planting his family in the leadership of several ministries and government institutions to control the expenditures of public projects for 80% of the state budget.

The Rajapaksa family's return to power marked a strategic shift for China, opening its coffers to serve the internationally ostentatious family and feeding the pro-elite.

 

Chinese Hegemony

China has become Sri Lanka's largest lender, giving the ruling family, China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC), the concession to establish Hambantota Port, Mattala International Airport, Columbus city port, massive road and bridge infrastructure projects, as well as temples, palaces, and a huge cricket ground, in the Hambantota region, where the president's family is located, with more residents of the territory's capital.

Sri Lanka's Chinese support included not only military aid but also diplomacy.

When news reached the United Nations of the use of heavy weapons, as well as atrocities committed by the Sri Lankan army in its campaign against the Tamil Tigers, China hampered efforts to issue a warning statement against attacks on civilians.

When Mexico tried to put Sri Lanka on the agenda of the official United Nations debate, China pushed it away, and when the war ended with the government's victory in 2009, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa publicly thanked China for its assistance in the war.

Economically, the Chinese government has established strong relations with Sri Lanka in general and with the Rajapaksa family in particular; over the past decade and a half, China has invested billions of dollars in Sri Lanka.

According to data from the British think tank Chatham House, China invested $12.1 billion between 2006 and 2019 in Sri Lanka, and since 2013 China has gradually increased its presence and influence in Sri Lanka through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

China also supported the Rajapaksa family; during Mahinda Rajapaksa's 2015 election campaign, at least $7.6 million went directly from a Chinese state-owned company to Rajapaksa's campaign expenses. While China supported the ruling family, China had nothing to do with other Sri Lankan figures, which showed the political family as a link between China and Sri Lanka. It finally became untrue after Beijing abandoned the family and let it collapse.

This is what President Rajapaksa pointed out when he was suffering under the weight of debt and the collapse of his country's economy in an interview with Bloomberg when he said that South Asian countries with financial problems no longer pay the same attention to China as it did before. Pointing out that China has shifted its strategic focus toward Southeast Asia and Africa, announcing his country's failure to benefit from a $1.5 billion credit line from Beijing.

 

Sell-Out

Because China intends to become a two-ocean power (Pacific and Indian), it has begun investing in deep-water ports in Burma, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, and Indian Ocean ports and the Bay of Bengal are part of a larger plan to secure China's future, an investment that guarantees good relations, and whose future naval forces have visit-friendly bases or residence, as well as trade links. The Chinese are also building ports in Kenya, railway lines in Angola, and hydropower dam projects in Ethiopia on a sustainable resource search.

From all of the above, the Rajapaksa family realized Sri Lanka's vital importance to China's future economic and defense interests and took Chinese assistance for granted, leaving it in shock when China did not come to Sri Lanka's aid during the current economic crisis, leaving its Rajapaksa allies to prey to the people.

But China, which saw the Rajapaksa paper burned, decided it needed to separate its relations in Sri Lanka from Rajapaksa, once their main point of arrival in the country. So it was necessary for China, which wants to return to doing business later in the country, to jump from the sunken Rajapaksa's boat.

China's slowdown in saving Sri Lanka proves to be firmly rooted in its credibility test and its protection of its friends, although it suffers from the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and the slowdown in economic growth.

The crisis has proved unwilling, unable to help its allies in times of crisis, or afraid that others will refrain from paying off debts to the big lender. It has blocked a promised $100 million loan to Sri Lanka and rejects the IMF's debt restructuring plan, enabling it to obtain a $500 million loan from financial institutions that reduce its debt.

China prefers to entice military and authoritarian regimes and poor countries with loans, to build large, expensive projects, and when governments fail to repay loans, they seize their assets and expand their strategic influence.

In 2018, China granted loans to government institutions amounting to about $385 billion, with interest ranging from 3% to 6%, twice as much as other financing institutions, to control countries in exchange for debt tolerance.