India snubs China in Sri Lanka over Yuan Wang 5 upheavals
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, August 27: Within a week of the Chinese spy ship Yuan Wang 5 leaving the Hambantota Port, China gave away its smokescreen of covertly pursuing a geostrategic depth in Colombo.
The Chinese ambassador Qi Zenhong in Colombo in his Op-Ed article bared Beijing’s hurriedness to build the Sri Lankan asset against India.
Indian embassy in Sri Lanka in a series of tweets called the bluff of the Chinese ambassador.
While Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan hit China hard, Beijing has gone hunting for international endorsements for ‘One China Policy’. However, Beijing has found that its ‘One China Policy’ has no cheerleaders even among the countries whom the country had co-opted in the Belt and Road Initiative and also the consequent debt-trap.
The Indian embassy released three tweets in succession to hit out strongly at the Chinse ambassador in Sri Lanka’s diplomatic delinquency by referring to 17 aggressions of the island nation from its northern neighbor.
Sri Lanka has only one northern neighbor and that is India.
“We have noted the remarks of the Chinese Ambassador. His violation of basic diplomatic etiquette may be a personal trait or reflecting a larger national attitude,” the India embassy stated in the first no-holds-barred tweet against the Chinese ambassador’s highly provocative opinion piece.
In the next tweet, the Indian embassy was more scathing on China, saying “opaqueness and debt driven agendas are now a major challenge, especially for smaller nations.”
The embassy further stated that “recent developments are a caution. Sri Lanka needs support, not unwanted pressure on unnecessary controversies to serve another country’s agenda.
The third tweet by the Indian embassy hit where it hurt most for the Chinese game plan in the Indian Ocean waters.
“His views of Sri Lanka’s northern neighbor may be coloured by how his own country behaves. India, we assure him, is very different. His imputing a geopolitical context to the visit of a purported scientific research vessel is a giveaway,” the Indian embassy in Sri Lanka bared all its teeth to the Chinese provocation.
India now officially has called Yuan Wang 5 as a purported scientific research vessel. This brings in full public view the Indian concerns that the Chinese arm-twisted the Sri Lankan President Ranil Vickremesinghe to allow a spy ship to dock at the Hambantota Port as part of the military outreach of Beijing.
The Indian embassy in Sri Lanka hammered the Chinese ambassador for writing “looking back at the great history of the island, Sri Lanka who overcome aggression from its northern neighbor for 17 times…”
Qi also wrote that “any infringement on the national sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka shall not be tolerated”.
This amounted to the suggestion that the Chinese military could be a call away from docking at the Sri Lankan ports.
“Approving a foreign vessel’s port call at Hambantota or any other port for replenishment is a decision made by the Sri Lankan government completely within its sovereignty, not to mention all the scientific research activities of Yuan Wang 5 comply with the international law and common international practice. External obstruction based on so called security concerns but without any evidence from certain forces is de facto a thorough interference into Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and independence,” Qi further wrote.
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