China takes a hard line
ECONOMYNEXT-November 5, 2016, 9:23 pm The highly unusual outburst by China’s ambassador criticising Sri Lanka’s finance minister and the island’s economic policies is being intensively discussed in political and diplomatic circles.
Chinese ambassador Yi Xianliang called a rare press conference Tuesday
and criticised Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake by name, not once, but
thrice.
Colombo-based diplomats were surprised while the government was livid
and were scrambling to respond to what many saw as an attempt by the
Chinese envoy to openly criticise the host nation.
"Chinese diplomats never speak out of turn and if and when they say
something it is usually what their government wants them to say," a
Colombo-based Asian diplomat said.
Ambassador Yi said minister Ravi Karunanayake was asking for more
Chinese loans after publicly criticising the Chinese funding as
"expensive loans."
"You know Ravi criticises this issue many times, publicly. I ask him, if
you don’t like this one, why you again talk with me about another one
(loan)." the ambassador said at his second press meet in as many years.
He said Minister Karunanayake told him about securing a 50-million
dollar loan from Europe last year at 5.8 per cent, but was saying the
2.0 per cent Chinese loans were expensive.
The Chinese envoy also referred to "internal issues" within the unity
government as holding up development activities, especially
Chinese-funded projects.
Minister Karunanayake told reporters in Colombo on Thursday night that the Chinese envoy may have misunderstood what he said.
He said the money Sri Lanka had raised through bond sales (no strings
attached financing) could not be compared with project loans which come
with many conditions that favour the lender.
Official sources said a senior aide to the minister had raised the issue
with the Chinese ambassador who reportedly denied having made the
remarks attributed to him in the local media.
However, Sri Lankan authorities had secured both audio and video
recordings of the ambassador’s press conference and raised it with the
foreign ministry.
The Rajapaksa-faction of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) seized on
the ambassador’s remarks and told reporters on Thursday that they were
delighted.
Former foreign minister G. L. Peiris said the current government was taking an anti-China line.
Sources close to the government said they were more concerned about the
timing of the Chinese envoy’s remarks coming at a time when there were
simmering tensions within the "unity" government and moves by the SLFP
to topple the Prime Minister.
In a further sign of Beijing keeping its options open with the remnants
of the Rajapaksa regime, former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa,
had been invited to attend a defence conference in China last month.
It is not clear on what basis Beijing invited Gotabhaya, who is
currently under investigation for corruption, but he was apparently
treated on par with current defence secretary Karunasena Hettiarachchi,
an official who has reportedly earned the wrath of the president and the
government with his ill-timed comments on the killing of two students
in Jaffna and several other issues.
China had a cosy relationship with the Rajapaksa regime and secured free
access to Chinese submarines at the Colombo port much to the discomfort
of regional super power and Sri Lanka’s immediate neighbour India.
A return of a Rajapaksa-backed regime could take Sri Lanka closer to
China’s orbit and away from India, according to political observers.
The Chinese envoy made his displeasure known over alleged losses
incurred due to the new administration’s suspension of projects
initiated under the former regime of Rajapaksa.
Ambassador Yi said he maintained good relations with the former
president as well as his successor and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe but
was miffed with the alleged negative publicity China received in the
local media.
He said he had sent four delegations of Sri Lankan journalists to China in recent times, but yet the coverage was "negative."
