Sri Lankan foreign minister Ali Sabry on Tuesday said that Sri Lanka did not permit Chinese ships to dock in Sri Lanka. Sabry did not refer to the ship in question directly but India in the past raised concerns about Shi Yan 6 – a so-called Chinese research vessel which is slated to conduct research along with the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA).
“India has expressed its concern regarding this. We have now come out with an SOP, while we were making that we consulted our friends, including India,” Sabry said.
It remains unclear if Sabry is referring to US under secretary Victoria Nuland’s recent Sri Lanka visit when he made the reference to ‘friends’ because Nuland raised concerns regarding Shi Yan 6 docking at the China-owned Sri Lankan port of Hambantota.
Sri Lankan news outlets reported that during Nuland’s meeting with Sabry both discussed a standard operating procedure (SOP) to be followed by foreign ships and aircraft in carrying out any activity in Sri Lankan territory.
“As long as that complies with the SOP (there is no problem). But, if it does not comply, we have a problem. We have not given permission to come to Sri Lanka in October. India’s security concerns, which are legitimate, are very important for us because we want to keep our region as a zone of peace,” Sabry further added.
India has maintained that any developments in India’s neighbourhood that have a bearing on India’s security is India’s concern. “What happens in our neighbourhood, any developments which have a bearing on our security obviously are of an interest to us,” Union minister of external affairs S Jaishankar said while commenting on Chinese spy vessel Yuan Wang-5 which docked in Sri Lanka last year.
China continues to claim that the Shi Yan 6 is a “scientific research vessel” crewed by 60 that carries out oceanography, marine geology and marine ecology tests.
Yuan Wang 5 was also touted as a “scientific research vessel” but it specialises in spacecraft tracking and is capable of mapping the ocean bed, a surveillance tool critical to anti-submarine operations of the Chinese Navy.
China requested Sri Lanka to allow Shi Yan 6 to dock in August but Sri Lanka says that there is no set date and the request was being processed.
India is suspicious of China’s increasing presence in the Indian Ocean and its influence in Sri Lanka, seeing both as firmly within its sphere of influence.
China cried foul and said that it was “unjustified for certain countries to cite “security concerns to pressure Sri Lanka”. China also runs Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port. They took it on a 99-year lease for $1.12 billion in 2017, less than the $1.4 billion Sri Lanka paid a Chinese firm to build it.
China also owns 52% of cash-strapped Sri Lanka’s bilateral debt. Colombo defaulted on its $46 billion external debt in April 2022 and is facing an economic crisis.
Between January and July last year, India provided Sri Lanka with $4 billion in rapid assistance via credit lines, a currency swap arrangement and deferred import payments. It owes Chinese lenders $7.4 billion.
Sri Lanka’s parliament approved a domestic debt restructuring plan in July which remains crucial to continue the $2.9 billion bailout sanctioned by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
(with inputs from AFP, Reuters, CNN-News18, Daily MirrorSL)
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