FROM the outset, it made little sense for the Chinese to send a spy
ship to Sri Lanka when the country was reeling under its worstever economic crises. Colombo could have done without getting
caught in strategic rivalry. It was chicanery on Beijing’s part to have
sought permission from a dying regime for a ‘research ship’ — which
spies on a country’s coastal defences on the side — to dock at Hambantota. The Presidential Palace in Colombo was about to be stormed and
President Gotabaya Rakapaksa was literally packing his bags. A new
administration in Colombo under Ranil Wickremsinghe as President
was served a Chinese fait accompli when it took over because the ship
was a few days’ sail away from Hambantota.
After the new regime withdrew permission to dock and with no
alternative port immediately available, the Chinese pulled the strings
to gain a reluctant permission. The matter should have ended at that.
But the Chinese envoy sought to set off Sri Lanka against India in a
series of tweets. Some were laughably naïve, such as equating the Taiwan crisis to the docking of the spy ship. But there was a crude bid to
drive a wedge between India and Sri Lanka by alleging that Sri Lanka had been invaded by its northern neighbour 17 times. He, perhaps,
tabulated all the local skirmishes involving ancient and medieval
kingdoms on either side of the Palk Strait.
The Chinese envoy was also wrong when he faulted India for
raising ‘security concerns’ without any evidence. He omitted to
inform that when Sri Lanka relented and allowed the ship to dock,
three conditions were imposed. It had to keep its Automatic Identification System switched on and was barred from scientific research
in the Lankan waters, which meant that the ‘research’ equipment
on the ship had to be shut down. Lastly, no Chinese crew was
allowed to disembark. In other words, Colombo took care of the
security concerns as far as it could. For now, as the Indian Foreign
Office said, Sri Lanka needs support, not unwanted pressure or
unnecessary controversies to serve another country’s agenda.