One-upmanship in Sri Lanka

By Sandeep Unnithan

Daily Mail: How do you recognise a Chinese construction site in Sri Lanka?” our driver Arjuna N asks as the Lanka’s emerald landscape blurs past. “Easy,” he laughs, “you won’t find a dog anywhere near it.”

The 341kms highway our sedan coasts on at nearly 100 kmph, was rebuilt by Chinese construction firms in 2010.

Chinese workers may have amused locals with their culinary preferences but are quietly transforming the island nation with a series of gigantic infrastructure projects.

The A9 highway links the Sinhala cultural capital Kandy in the central province with the Tamil cultural centrifuge Jaffna in the north.

Once the ‘highway of death,’ it was a pock-marked metaphor for Sri Lanka’s 26- year Mexican standoff.

Tamil Tiger rebels blocked the 100km that passed through the territory they held, choking the Government- held Jaffna.

With the defeat of the Tigers in 2009, the rebuilt highway is now a two-lane asphalt metaphor hauling the engine of Sri Lanka’s booming post-war 6.3% economic growth.

The volume of trucks, buses and cars barreling down the A9 into Jaffna has made G.A. Chandrasiri, the affable Governor of the nation’s Northern Province, think of installing traffic lights in the city.

Running parallel to this asphalt showpiece are two railway lines totalling over 146 kms. It is being built by the Indian Railways-owned RITES.

When completed by the yearend, it will haul cargo and passengers between central Sri Lanka and its northern port of Kankesanthurai (KKS), a port also being rebuilt by India.

Both India and China are jockeying for influence in the island nation that was wracked by nearly three decades of continuous war.

The ruthless Tigers had expanded to include economic warfare and had crippled tourism. A 2001 Black Tiger suicide attack on Colombo’s Bandaranaike international airport destroyed three airliners, half Air Lanka’s fleet.

The foundation of China’s assistance was laid during the final stages of the bloody civil war.

China stepped in where India was reluctant. It supplied tanks, fighter jets, assault rifles and ammunition worth over $ 200 m since 1993, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

These arms played a substantial role in winning the civil war that ended in May 2009. The Lankan soldier in the victory memorial in Mullaitivu clutches a Chinese-made Type 56-2 rifle.

China is now fighting to reap Lanka’s peace dividend by shielding it from international opprobrium. India, meanwhile, worries about the island nation, barely 30 km across the Palk Straits, tapping the pulse of Tamil Nadu’s frenzied politics.

On 18 March, as Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu raised the pitch on a UN vote over Sri Lanka’s human rights abuses in the final stages of the civil war, President Mahinda Rajapaksa cut the ribbon on the Mattala Rajapaksa Airport.

Sri Lanka’s second international airport was built for $ 209 m by China. It is located just 40 km from the Chinese-built Hambantota Port in the southern province. It will be the 21st century’s largest port when the second phase is completed next year. China’s presence is about size and visibility. The $ 100 m Lotus Tower, a telecommunications tower financed by China’s Exim bank, will soar nearly 350 metres above Colombo.

Indian involvement is not insignificant – its project to (build 43,000 houses in the five districts of the Northern Province for over $ 270 m, is the single largest assistance to any foreign nation, but still dwarfed by Chinese projects.

In March 2011, India helped repair and lengthen the 950 metre long runway at Palaly airbase. The airstrip can now operate medium sized passenger aircraft. India is also building a 200-bed hospital in Vavuniya and has helped demine 9,500 hectares of the Northern Province.

Future plans are as modest and people focused: a $ 2 m agriculture faculty in Jaffna University and reviving the 25acre Achuveli industrial zone in Jaffna.

“There is no contest really,” an Indian diplomat in Sri Lanka said. “The Chinese are building infrastructure projects at commercial interest rates, India has given $800 m as aid,” he said. “We have attached no strings attached. Everything except the railway line is free.”

Yet, this substantial Indian aid has not helped stem a growing perception in both countries of India’s waning influence.

India’s negative vote against Lanka on 21 March may push the country towards China. China voted for Sri Lanka.

“When India calls Rajapaksa he says, ‘wait, let me check with the Chinese first,’” a wealthy Tamil businessman in Jaffna said.

Defence analyst Air Marshal (retired) Kapil Kak called the vote a ‘strategic blunder’ and a failure to insulate India’s foreign policy from domestic politics.  The Sri Lankans counter this criticism of China by saying that India was always approached first for all these projects.

In a 2010 interview to the Singapore-based Straits Times, President Rajapaksa said India had rejected the first offer to build Hambantota saying it wasn’t viable.

India offered to rebuild KKS harbour after it had been devastated in the December 2004 tsunami. When China unveiled the first phase of the Hambantota port in November 2010, India hadn’t even conducted a preliminary survey.

“India is a big country,” a Sri Lankan Army officer in Mullaitivu said with a smirk. “It takes time, but we can’t wait that long.”

India is still Sri Lanka’s largest trading partner and largest source of tourists. Bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $ 4.8 b in 2011.

India, however, has to contend with China, whose bilateral trade with the island nation is $ 3.2 b. There are no numbers, however, to track the game of influence.