Delhi toehold in key Lanka port. China fuming.

[Ray]

Delhi toehold in key Lanka port, at last

- IOC role in strategic weathervane

New Delhi, March 13: India has slipped a toehold into one of Sri Lanka's strategically most critical port facilities that Colombo had long blocked and that has for more than 50 years been a weathervane on the island nation's leanings between New Delhi and Beijing.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi hopped between meetings, lunches and speeches after landing in Colombo today, the two nations agreed to allow Indian Oil Corporation to develop South Asia's largest oil depot at a key port near Trincomalee on the island's northeast.

The public sector IOC will work with the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation to develop the Upper Tank Farm at the abandoned World War II port, ironically known as China Bay, under an agreement Sri Lanka had blocked for several years under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

The pact, struck under Rajapaksa's successor Maithripala Sirisena, is a recognition of past strategic opportunities India has missed. It is equally a reminder of the depth of China's relationship with Sri Lanka, often misunderstood as a creation of the Rajapaksa era - Colombo had once considered leasing the China Bay port to Beijing to use during the 1962 India-China war.

"India stands ready to help Trincomalee become a regional petroleum hub," Modi said in a statement after a meeting with Sirisena and delegation-level talks where Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, Indian foreign secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and national security adviser Ajit Doval had joined them. "The ocean economy is a new frontier that holds enormous promise for both of us. It is a priority for our two countries."

In Trincomalee, which Modi will not visit, India today sealed what could be the biggest strategic takeaway from the Prime Minister's visit.

The China Bay port stares at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and at South East Asia, giving those with presence on the port strategic access to one of the region's busiest waterways - especially for trade with China, as its name suggests.

But the port's journey has long mirrored Sri Lanka's relations with the neighbourhood's two giants - India and China.

When India and China were locked in the 1962 war, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the Prime Minister of the country then called Ceylon, offered to play peacemaker. But her proposals to broker an understanding between India and China were heavily tilted in favour of Beijing, where she was famously called an "angel of peace".

Four decades later, in the early 2000s, Sri Lanka decided it wanted to modernise the tank farm at the port. India offered assistance and, in 2003, the IOC and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation signed an agreement.

But Sri Lanka then blocked a subsequent agreement to lease the land to the IOC, which was critical for the public sector major to begin its work, citing a series of concerns through the Rajapaksa years when Colombo edged closer to China again.

For India's strategic community, Sri Lanka has long been a land of missed opportunities - a key reason, officials said, why India had jumped to accept the Sirisena government's signal of a thaw.

When Sri Lanka decided it wanted to develop the Hambantota port at the southern tip of the country, India recognised the strategic gains possible from a role in the project. But mired in bureaucracy, India's offer reached Sri Lanka too late.

Colombo had by then handed the project to China.

Modi landed in Colombo early Friday morning, the first Indian Prime Minister on a bilateral visit to Sri Lanka since Rajiv Gandhi in 1987. The Prime Minister was received at the airport by Wickramasinghe.

After the bilateral diplomatic meetings - where four pacts in all were inked - Modi lunched with the Sri Lankan Prime Minister before addressing the country's Parliament.

The Indian Prime Minister visited the headquarters of the Maha Bodhi Society, a Buddhist group that has for over a century tried to spread Buddhism across South Asia, including India. He also paid homage at a memorial to fallen soldiers of the Indian Peace Keeping Force.

Later in the evening, Modi met leaders of parties in the Opposition, and leaders from the Tamil National Alliance, the country's leading grouping of Tamil parties. The Prime Minister will tomorrow visit Anuradhapura - a sacred Buddhist pilgrimage city - and Jaffna, the capital of the Tamil-dominated Northern Province.

In Talaimannar - the town in the country's northwest that is geographically closest to Rameswaram in India - Modi will launch a rail line built with Indian help.

One of her proposals was to let China use the China Bay port as a base - a suggestion she had to discard amid protests from the Opposition United National Party, currently headed by Wickramasinghe
Delhi toehold in key Lanka port, at last

The Congress and @genius have continuously chastised Mr Modi as the FM and not the PM because of this foreign trips to bolster India on international map and effect strategic gains.

If one just analyses the gains that Mr Modi's foreign trips has accrued to India, one will realise that India has been lifted from the Rip Van Winkle slumber that had made it a non consequential nation, inspite of its geographical importance. This obviously does not dawn on the asininity in thought of Messrs Anand Sharma, the bucktooth wonder, and @genius, whose citizenship is a wonderment to many.

Those who have a modicum of any strategic analysis will realise the importance of Trinco and Trinco Bay. That India has managed a foothold there speaks volumes, more so, when SL was appearing to be a surrogate of China.

In fact, those who are abreast with the news, will know that the Chinese project at the Colombo Port has been put in hold, not because of India, but because of the SL workers and the Chinese media are wild with the event. We are well aware that the Chinese media are but the mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Govt. In short, China has been out China-ed.

 

[Rowdy]

The Congress and @genius have continuously chastised Mr Modi as the FM and not the PM because of this foreign trips to bolster India on international map and effect strategic gains.

If one just analyses the gains that Mr Modi's foreign trips has accrued to India, one will realise that India has been lifted from the Rip Van Winkle slumber that had made it a non consequential nation, inspite of its geographical importance. This obviously does not dawn on the asininity in thought of Messrs Anand Sharma, the bucktooth wonder, and @genius, whose citizenship is a wonderment to many.

Those who have a modicum of any strategic analysis will realise the importance of Trinco and Trinco Bay. That India has managed a foothold there speaks volumes, more so, when SL was appearing to be a surrogate of China.

In fact, those who are abreast with the news, will know that the Chinese project at the Colombo Port has been put in hold, not because of India, but because of the SL workers and the Chinese media are wild with the event. We are well aware that the Chinese media are but the mouthpieces of the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Govt. In short, China has been out China-ed.

So....So what has modi done??? We are not sekularrr any more ... I want AK49 to be PM so we can be sekularr ...

 

[Srinivas_K]

Why china has to fume ?

The title is misleading, the port given to Chinese was offered to India first.

China has nothing to do with IOR !

 

[sorcerer]

Only panic for China is they took it for granted.
As our Chinese posters in here say about their investment in Srilanka; they must have thought that they could buy diplomacy by money and buy friendship like they do with Pakistan.

Nations have their own dynamics and the Chinese Kungfu is not Strong.

 

[sorcerer]

Strong Grouping Needed for Indian Ocean Nations: PM Narendra Modi
Stating that the Indian Ocean is at the top of India's policy priorities, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that time has come for a "strong grouping" around it.

PM Modi's comments came even as he said India recognized that there are other nations around the world, with strong interests and stakes in the region, in a veiled reference to China that is seeking to gain a foothold in the Indian Ocean Region, reports PTI.

"We often define regional groupings around land mass. The time has come for a strong beginning around the Indian Ocean. We will pursue this with new vigour in the years ahead," he said at the commissioning event of India-made coast guard vessel for Mauritius.

The induction of the 1,300-tonne vessel 'Barracuda' for the Mauritian National Coast Guard amid attempts by China to establish its presence in the Indian Ocean Region marks the first of such sales to this strategic island nation which include fast attack craft under construction in Indian shipyards.

Modi said there can be no better place to host the secretariat for Indian Ocean Regional Association (IORA) than Mauritius and that he was pleased that its Secretary General is from India.
Currently Ambassador KV Bhagirath is the Secretary General of IORA.

Asserting that India must also assume its responsibility to shape the future of Indian Ocean, PM Modi said, "Indian Ocean Region is at the top of our policy priorities".

The Prime Minister said those who live in this region have the primary responsibility for peace, stability and prosperity in the region.

"But we recognise that there are other nations around the world, with strong interests and stakes in the region," he added.




Read more: http://hindi.sputniknews.com/south_asia/20150313/1013747174.html#ixzz3UMsgBC6y

 

[sorcerer]

China And India To Build Sri Lanka's Colombo Financial City Together?

Colombo Financial City has so far been one of the most geopolitically derisive and controversial of all of China’s international development projects.
Formerly called Colombo Port City, the 269 hectare business district that is being built on reclaimed land off the coast of Sri Lanka’s capital has drawn the ire of India since the project commenced for the first time in 2014. The reason for this reaction is simple: the $1.4 billion new city of skyscrapers, hotels, and shopping malls is nearly 100% Chinese foreign direct investment and the original plan (since revised) had 50 hectares of permanent freehold rights going to China.

The possibility of the upstart superpower to the east having its very own outpost just off the shores of Tamil Nadu didn’t resonate well with India. This was in no small part due to the fact that Colombo Financial City was to become a major station along China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which also includes new Chinese-backed ports in Myanmar, Bangladesh, the Maldives, and Pakistan — essentially surrounding India in what has been dubbed a “string of pearls.” India’s apprehension about the hypothetical strategic nature of Colombo Financial City was in no way assuaged when Chinese military submarines and a warship pulled into port near the project area in 2014.

“So there China would be, a Chinese company would be getting land that is reclaimed from the sea and equal rights to part of it and so on. So that was controversial in India and they felt that there was a risk that China is going to have naval interests and a security presence there and how that would affect India’s own geopolitical position,” explained Deshal de Mel, a senior economist at Hayleys Plc in Colombo.

For the next couple of years, Colombo Financial City would become the frontline of China and India’s geopolitical showdown, with one side always trying to whittle down the influence of the other. But it no longer has to be this way.

Yi Xianliang, China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, invited India to participate in the Colombo Financial City project last month.

“We welcome any third party to join Sri Lanka and China. We are not opposed to India or any other country. China already has many business relationships with India,” Yi said.

While India remains hesitant about taking hold of the olive branch just yet, joining in on the financial city project wouldn’t necessarily be too far outside of their established ambitions in Sri Lanka. The Asia Times reported that just last month India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that over the next few years India would be investing upwards of $2 billion in Sri Lanka — and Colombo Financial City is the biggest investment project that Sri Lanka has going.

China has already vouched an additional $8 billion to pump into the financial city project and Sri Lanka expects the FDI total to top $13 billion, in what is the largest infrastructure project in the country’s history. When it is all said and done Colombo Financial City is projected to become a game changing financial center that could rival Singapore to the east and Dubai to the west.
India was never necessarily excluded from this project or any other along China’s Belt and Road initiative, which includes the Maritime Silk Road. In fact, the leading nation of South Asia has been invited to participate on numerous occasions, which would further develop and enhance the diplomatic and financial links between the world’s two largest emerging economies.

After a series of starts and stops, years of geopolitical jockeying, and the threat of a massive law suit, Colombo Financial City is back online — land is being reclaimed and it’s looking as if the new city is actually going to be built. And maybe, just maybe, this time it won’t be a source of contention between two of Asia’s heavyweight economies, who could potentially join forces in what is certainly one of the biggest and most dynamic development projects happening in the world today.
Wade Shepard travels to emerging markets around Asia and report on what I find. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own
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[I am otm shank]

with Lanka winning it's war against Tamil dignity they have so much options but very little liability. won't be suprised if they become a Chinese out post.