By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham 

COLOMBO – Sri Lanka earlier this month averted what could have exploded into a geopolitical diplomatic crisis with an adroit manoeuvre that will see a one-year moratorium on all foreign ships conducting research in Sri Lankan waters.

The move stems from the backdrop of pressure, both overt and covert, applied largely by India, and more recently by the USA and Japan, against granting permission for Chinese research vessels to dock in Sri Lankan ports.

Foreign Minister Ali Sabri told the media last week that the moratorium will be effective from January 2024, and the concerned countries have been notified about the 12-month pause. He also explained that the decision was made with the aim of doing some capacity development to facilitate Sri Lanka to participate as an equal partner in the exploration activities carried out by foreign vessels in Sri Lankan waters.

There is no gainsaying that the government’s decision was spurred on by the most recent permission request from China for yet another of its research vessels, Xiang Yang Hong 03,  to dock at the port of Colombo, ostensibly to carry out research in Sri Lankan waters in the next few months.

The request comes close on the heels of the visit by China’s Shi Yan 6, at the Colombo port in the latter part of October for research along the western coast of Sri Lanka, with the participation of the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) and the Ruhunu University. Permission for the visit was granted by the government despite objections from India, citing security concerns.

The new round of permission requests comes barely two months after the visit of Shi Yan 6 in October.  What is worth noticing is that China has this time around, also sought permission from the Maldivian government for Xiang Yang Hong 03 to carry out deep-sea exploration in the South Indian Ocean from January 5 till late May. The ship, which is currently off the coast of Xiamen in the South China Sea, was scheduled to pass through the Strait of Malacca, subject to approval from both countries.

Of geopolitical interest is the fact that the permission request from the Maldives comes close on the heels of a pro-China government being installed in Malé.  New president, Mohamed Muizzu, immediately after taking office last month, asked New Delhi to withdraw Indian troops from his country, fulfilling a campaign promise in the run-up to the recent presidential election.

Muizzu pledged in the ‘Week 14’ or the first 100 days in office manifesto, that his government would review and refocus all bilateral agreements entered into by the government of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, deemed as being intrusive to Maldives’ independence and sovereignty.

Along with asking New Delhi to withdraw Indian troops from the Maldives, President Muizzu has also announced he would be cancelling the Hydrography Agreement with India entered into by the Solih government in June 2019. The Agreement, which is set to expire on June 4, 2024, calls for a 6-month notice if either party seeks to cancel the agreement, failing which the Agreement would automatically be extended for a further five years.

It is amidst these fallouts that spell near-certain diplomatic spat between New Delhi and Malé that China has asked the Maldivian government to allow its research vessel to carry out deep-sea exploration in the South Indian Ocean next month. Now the question arises, how will the Sri Lankan government’s announcement of a one-year moratorium on foreign research vessels impact or shape the Maldives’ decision?

India has already urged Sri Lanka and the Maldives not to allow entry to Xiang Yang Hong 03, warning that the research carried out by Chinese vessels in the Indian Ocean is aimed at future military operations.

China is yet to respond to the Sri Lankan government’s decision.

New Delhi has previously raised concerns about Chinese vessels Yuan Wang 5, which arrived at the Hambantota port in August 2022 and Shi Yang 6, which arrived at the Colombo port in October this year, posing a threat to India’s security because of their intelligence-gathering capabilities.   But China has dismissed the concerns, saying its ships are engaged in oceanographic research and do not in any way pose a threat to the security of any country.  It has also countered India’s opposition to its vessels by saying that a third country’s concerns should not influence Sri Lanka’s bilateral engagements with China.

Sri Lanka is in an unenviable situation of having to literally walk a diplomatic tightrope so as to ensure it does not slight either India or China in the simmering dispute over the visits of the research vessels. In a bid to diffuse the tension the Sri Lankan government had said that in permitting the two previous research vessels to dock at Hambantota and Colombo ports, it had stipulated that no research activity could be carried out in Sri Lankan waters without the presence of NARA. But concerns remain as to what extent the stipulations would have been adhered to by the Chinese vessels.

Given that Sri Lanka had already allowed two Chinese vessels to dock at its ports, discounting India’s objection, a third greenlight would no doubt complicate matters to a level the country can ill afford. But still, the question remains, just how much pressure was exerted by India for Sri Lanka to take the moratorium route?

At the other end of the geopolitical spectrum, one has to wonder whether China’s frequent permission request for its research vessels to dock at Sri Lankan ports is an attempt at upping the ante in its rivalry with India, using Sri Lanka as the pawn, and pressuring it to sway the decision its way.

Forced to find a way out of a difficult situation that wouldn’t antagonize either party, Sri Lanka chose the step-back option – a one-year moratorium on foreign research vessels docking at its port. As the timeline suggests, it is a solution for the time being.

Sri Lanka has so far not taken any decision that could antagonize China by giving into pressure from India. But there is no doubt the current decision on a maritime moratorium will cause some irritation, even anger.

How Sri Lanka will deal with the fallout is left to be seen, but the decision indicates Sri Lanka may have understood the need not to antagonize any major powers in dealing with issues of geopolitical importance with national elections slated for 2024.

Meanwhile, some international political observers who believe India’s security concerns vis-à-vis Chinese ships in Sri Lankan ports to be overblown, point out that China does not need to send surveillance ships to Sri Lanka to know where India has deployed its strategic weapons, and that China’s satellite technology has advanced tremendously.

Be that it may, there is also a widespread perception in southern Sri Lanka that India expects Colombo to accede to its requests in exchange for the emergency loan given last year when the island nation faced its worst economic crisis.

Recent history shows us that India hasn’t taken umbrage at Sri Lanka’s failure to respect New Delhi’s concerns on geopolitical issues. However, in the context of the ongoing rivalry between Asia’s big powers, India needs to ensure Sri Lanka does not fully surrender to China.

In any case, Sri Lanka will have to do a careful balancing act in the geopolitical competition between the two big powers, as the rivalry for dominance in the Indian Ocean risks intensifying with China now calling the Indian Ocean the ‘China-Indian Ocean Region’ (CIOR).

This was well articulated by Colombo-based senior Indian journalist and seasoned political analyst P. K. Balachandran, who in an article in this regard in NewsinAsia last week wrote:

“In opposition to the traditional practice of using the term ‘Indian Ocean’ for the sea stretching from the Bay of Bengal to Antarctica over 9,600 km on the North-South axis, and from Southern Africa to Australia over 7,600 km on the East-West axis, China has begun using the term ‘China-Indian Ocean Region’.

“The term ‘China-Indian Ocean Region’ (CIOR) was used in many places in an official document relating to a recent international conference on the Blue Economy of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

“The conference which was on ‘Boosting Sustainable Blue Economy to Build Together a Maritime Community with a Shared Future’, was held in Kunming, in the Yunnan Province of China on December 7 and 8.

“According to a participant in the conference, the Chinese appeared to be against the identification of the Indian Ocean exclusively with India. Hence the re-designation of the IOR as ‘China-Indian Ocean Region’ so that China too has a place in it.

“Participants at the conference from the region appeared to endorse the Chinese view in this matter apparently because they too felt that the identification of the ocean with India alone gave the Indians a sense of ownership of the ocean and contributed to New Delhi’s bid to dominate it.”

These are ominous signs indeed and Sri Lanka in all probability could be facing a big problem as the Indian Ocean becomes a competitive region for world powers. This makes it vital for Colombo to maintain a sensible foreign policy without being dragged into a dangerous geopolitical rivalry.

– Veeragathy Thanabalasingham is a senior journalist and Consultant Editor, Express Newspapers Ltd