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| Implications for India's security become serious | | Chinese get foothold in Sri Lanka | | NEW DELHI, MAR 13: Strife-torn Sri Lanka's south coast will, in the next some days, witness the arrival of a large number of Chinese. In a situation like this, implications for India's security are going to become serious. In plain language, China is all set to drop anchor at India's southern doorstep.
It will not be an easy task for anyone to stop Chinese march after Sri Lanka and China finalised an agreement under which the latter will participate in the development of a port project at Hambantota on the island's south coast. An agreement on the Hambantota project was among eight that were signed during Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse's recent visit to China. Even as the Sri Lankans were finalizing the deal with the Chinese, they clinched an agreement with the Americans. In Colombo, officials reached agreement on an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) with the US.
The agreements come at a time when India is already watching with concern the growing Pakistani influence in Sri Lanka. The Hambantota Development Zone, which the Chinese will help build, will include a container port, a bunkering system, an oil refinery, an airport and other facilities. It is expected to cost about one billion US dollars and the Chinese are said to be financing more than 85 per cent of the project.
Construction on the first phase of the project is scheduled to begin in July and is due to be completed in three years. The entire project is scheduled to be completed in the next 15 years. Sino-Sri Lankan cooperation on the port project is expected to propel Hambantota, 240 kilometers south of the Lankan capital, Colombo, into a major transshipment hub. Hambantota's infrastructure will help service hundreds of ships that ply the waters to the south of Sri Lanka.
China's role in the Hambantota project has stirred concern in some quarters in India. Some analysts here have argued that India has lost out to the Chinese. They say that China won the project thanks to Indian "lethargy" and "shortsightedness". According to this view, while India has been dragging its feet on this and other issues, the Chinese quickly moved in to clinch the deal. In the process, it has made inroads into Sri Lanka--a country that India regards as within its sphere of influence.
However, there are others who have played down the implications of the Sino-Lankan cooperation at Hambantota. They dismiss allegations that India lost the port project to the Chinese and maintain that India was not interested in the Hambantota oil-tank farm and bunkering project in the first place, as it already has a sizable presence in Trincomalee on Sri Lanka's northeast coast. While the Hambantota project gives the Chinese a foothold in Sri Lanka, this cannot be interpreted as a decline in India's role on the island. Geographic proximity, ethnic links and close ties between India and Sri Lanka, according to Indian official circles, cannot be eroded by a few projects and agreements with other countries.
But the Chinese role in the Hambantota project is not just about influence in Sri Lanka. It is about China's presence close to Indian shores, which has implications for India's security. Besides, with Hambantota, Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean has been further consolidated. The Hambantota port project is the latest in a series of steps that China has taken in recent years to consolidate its access to the Indian Ocean and to secure sea lanes through which its energy supplies are transported. It has adopted what analysts describe as a "string of pearls" strategy, building strategic relationships with countries along sea lanes from the Middle East to the South China Sea.
One such "pearl" is Gwadar, Pakistan. Since late 2001, China has been engaged in constructing and developing a deepsea port and a special economic zone at Gwadar, in Balochistan province. China's interest in Gwadar is motivated by the latter's strategic location. Gwadar is just 72km from the Iranian border and 400km east of the Strait of Hormuz, a major conduit of global oil supplies.
China's massive involvement in the Gwadar project has provided Beijing with a "listening post" from where it can monitor US naval activity in the Persian Gulf, Indian activity in the Arabian Sea, and future US-Indian maritime cooperation in the Indian Ocean.
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