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Days after denying reports about the arrival of a Chinese research vessel, and following India’s “clear message” about “carefully monitoring” the development, Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Defence on Saturday confirmed that the vessel had sought clearance to call at the southern Hambantota Port in August.
The Chinese vessel’s arrival, as The Hindu’s Meera Srinivasan reports from Colombo, could potentially leave Colombo caught between New Delhi and Beijing’s interests once again. While the Ministry of Defence in Colombo did not explain why it had earlier denied the vessel’s arrival, it said “such vessels periodically come from various countries such as India, China, Japan, Australia” and it was “nothing unusual.” However, strategic analysts are closely watching the development, given past tensions between Colombo and New Delhi, especially after Colombo allowed a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine Changzheng 2 to dock at its port in 2014.
Meanwhile, on a visit to New Delhi, Samantha Power, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), said “opaque” loans for “headline-grabbing” infrastructure projects, were among the factors behind the current crisis that has engulfed Sri Lanka. Delivering a speech at the IIT-Delhi, Ms. Power praised India’s “swift” action in response to the emergency in Sri Lanka.
The Taiwan Flashpoint
United States President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping on Thursday held a phone meeting amid rising tensions between the two countries on a range of issues, most recently on the announced visit of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan during her visit to Asia this week.
On Sunday, Pelosi announced she will visit four Asian countries this week but made no mention of the possible stop in Taiwan.
China, meanwhile, announced military drills this weekend just as the House Speaker began her visit to the region.
We looked at how the possible visit by Pelosi, whether or not it goes ahead this week, has brought to the fore simmering tensions over the Taiwan issue, how the three involved parties – China, the U.S. and Taiwan – view the current perilous status quo, and where things may be headed as tensions rise in the Taiwan Strait.
The Top Five
What we are reading this week - the best of The Hindu’s Opinion and Analysis:
Road to Downing Street: Rishi Sunak won 137 votes while Liz Truss won 113 in the fourth round of voting. AFP ISABEL INFANTES | Photo Credit: ISABEL INFANTES
- Suhasini Haidar, in this week’s edition of Worldview, on what the U.K. Prime Ministerial race means for India.
- Former National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan writes on a global order caught in a swirl of chaos, and why the Ukraine-Russia conflict is only one of the many strands altering the contours of world governance.
- Meera Srinivasan profiles Dinesh Gunawardena, Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister who is a close ally of the under-fire Rajapaksas.
- Talmiz Ahmad, former Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, writes on President Biden’s visit to West Asia, which may have moved on from his vision of a region beholden to the U.S. for its security.
- Ramya Kannan writes on two recently published papers shedding some new light on the origins of COVID-19 and its connection to a seafood market in Wuhan.
Neighbourhood Watch
FILE PHOTO: A general view of Gwadar port in Gwadar, Pakistan, October 4, 2017. REUTERS/Drazen Jorgic/File Photo | Photo Credit: DRAZEN JORGIC
India welcomed the expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to include Iran next year, as External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar shared a table with Foreign Ministers of China, Pakistan, Russia and Central Asian countries at the ministerial meeting in Tashkent on Friday. While India pushed for Chabahar port to be a conduit for trade to central Asia, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister promoted the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor for trans-regional trade, including in a meeting with Taliban-appointed Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.
Days after China and Pakistan held a meeting to bring other countries into the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), India said that efforts to broaden CPEC’s scope are “inherently illegal”.
A war of words broke out between India and Pakistan on Thursday after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad announced that the Pakistani team will not participate in the 44th Chess Olympiad in Chennai as India passed the torch relay of the event through Jammu and Kashmir. An official statement from Islamabad described the torch relay through Kashmir as a “travesty” and called upon India to free political prisoners in the Valley. The Official Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Arindam Bagchi, described Pakistan’s decision as “surprising” as the move came after the Pakistani team had reportedly started its journey to Chennai.
As Afghanistan marks one year of Taliban rule in the coming August, the outfit has centralised political power in the Kandahar faction while decentralising its military power among a wide range of veteran and young commanders, Suhail Shaheen, head of the Political Office of the Taliban told The Hindu in an interview.
In this podcast, The Hindu spoke to former Indian Ambassador to Afghanistan Jayant Prasad on the situation in Afghanistan. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, has spoken of the “advancing erasure” of women from public life under a new look Taliban regime. At least 160 instances of extra-judicial killings have been reported of former government and security officials and more than 120 media workers have faced arbitrary arrest or detention. Eighty per cent of all women journalists have been fired from their jobs. Secondary schools remain closed for girls.
China’s internal security forces have stepped up ideological training to ensure full loyalty to President Xi Jinping as he prepares to begin a third-term later this year, top security officials said.
