Which candidate is China likely to back in Sri Lanka’s 2024 presidential election?

Opinion
By Editor_1
Anura Kumara Dissanayake, candidate of the leftist National People’s Power in the presidential election, at a meeting with Sun Haiyan, deputy minister of the Department of International Affairs of the Chinese Communist Party, at the JVP office in Colombo, Sri Lanka, April 23, 2024 -: Jathika Jana Balawegaya
By Rathindra Kuruwita

Sri Lankans will elect a new executive president on September 21. While choosing a leader to govern the country for the next five years is their sovereign right, it’s widely understood that China, India, and the United States have vested interests in the election’s outcome.

Colombo’s political circles are quite aware of which candidates the US and India would prefer. While India is believed to be backing the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) leader Sajith Premadasa, the Americans prefer President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is contesting the election as an independent candidate. However, there is uncertainty over which candidate China favours and whether it is financially backing any of them.

This speculation largely stems from China’s relatively low profile in Sri Lanka over the past four years, especially in the last two. Aside from sporadic humanitarian aid and a $392 million agreement in May 2023 to build the South Asia Commercial and Logistics Hub (SACL) at the Colombo port, China has remained largely disengaged from Sri Lanka since the pandemic.

Several factors explain this reduced engagement. One is that both the current Wickremesinghe administration and the previous Gotabaya Rajapaksa government have proven unreliable partners for China, often reneging on commitments under Indian influence. Another reason is that Chinese diplomats have shifted their focus to the Maldives since late 2023, leaving less time for the Chinese embassy in Colombo to engage with Sri Lankan stakeholders. Additionally, after years of financing large infrastructure projects worldwide, many of which turned into white elephants, China has become more cautious, now only backing projects with sound business plans.

However, another factor determines Beijing’s engagement with Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka was among the first non-communist countries to recognize the People’s Republic of China, and bilateral relations were established in the 1950s. While China has engaged with almost all Sri Lankan governments, a look at post-independent Sri Lankan history shows that there is a difference in the level of Chinese engagement in the country depending on whether Sri Lanka is run by the right-wing (represented by the United National Party or UNP) or the left of centre (exemplified by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party or SLFP and its offshoots) or coalitions led by these parties.  When a left-of-centre government is in power China has provided more aid, more loans, and more political support than when a UNP government is in power.

Sri Lanka established diplomatic ties with China in 1956 under the S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike government, the first SLFP government, despite opposition from the UNP. Under SLFP administrations, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai visited Sri Lanka twice, in 1956 and 1964. Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the wife of SWRD and the world’s first female prime minister, convened the Colombo Conference in 1962 when war broke out between China and India. She visited Beijing in 1963 to inform Chairman Mao Zedong of the proposals of the Colombo Conference and was warmly received. A maritime agreement was signed between China and Sri Lanka in July 1963 where the two sides gave each other Most Favoured Nation status.

On the other hand, when the UNP has been in power, the Sino-Sri Lankan relationship has tended to be lukewarm. Throughout the 1950s and the 1960s, the UNP was pro-India and wanted Sri Lanka to name China the aggressor in the war with India. They also opposed the maritime agreement. When UNP’s Dudley Senanayake became prime minister in 1965, relations with China nosedived. Colombo refused to agree to Beijing’s nominee as ambassador to the country, and China kept the post of ambassador vacant during Dudley’s five years.

Things again improved after Sirimavo was elected to power again in 1970. With the support of the non-aligned movement, Sri Lanka introduced a proposal to the United Nations General Assembly in October 1971 on making the Indian Ocean a Zone of Peace. Although no country openly opposed or voted against it – that would have signalled support for Cold War tensions and superpower rivalry – apart from China, the major powers – France, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States – abstained.

In 1972, Sirimavo made a highly publicized and successful state visit to China, where she met with Mao. She described the relationship between the two nations as “a model of inter-state relations.” By the end of 1976, China had become one of Sri Lanka’s leading trade partners. Colombo secured an interest-free loan of about $38 million from China to support agro-based industries, along with an additional $7 million interest-free loan to fund the construction of an integrated textile mill. Furthermore, Beijing gifted five high-speed naval boats to Sri Lanka and constructed the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall at an estimated cost of around $5 million.

While the 17-year UNP government between 1977 and 1994 managed to maintain cordial relations with China, helped by the China-US rapprochement at that time, the J. R. Jayewardene government was decidedly pro-United States.

The return of the SLFP in 1994 under the leadership of President Chandrika Bandaranaike saw relations with China improving. Her tenure laid the foundations for the present phase of trade and military cooperation between the two nations. In 1996, the Joint Economic Commission was revived and the Sri Lanka-China Business Cooperation Council (SLCBCC) was established in 1994; both were vital in promoting and strengthening the bilateral business partnerships.

In 2001, the China Exim Bank provided a loan of $72 million to implement the Muthurajawela Oil Tank Storage Project. This can be seen as the start of Chinese funding of infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka. In Chandrika’s second term, then-Sri Lankan Defence Minister Tilak Marapone visited China in June 2002 and signed an agreement under which China agreed to supply weapons to combat the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and to help modernize Sri Lanka’s navy to prevent weapons smuggling by the LTTE.  Most of the weapons used by Sri Lanka against the LTTE came from China thereafter.

The avenues opened up by the Chandrika administration were taken further during the tenure of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, another SLFP leader. China provided much-needed military aid to defeat the LTTE, and was instrumental in Sri Lanka withstanding international pressure on human rights violations during the last phase of the war. Sri Lanka was also one of the early beneficiaries of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It provided loans to propel Sri Lanka’s post-war infrastructure boom.  In 2014, President Xi Jinping visited Sri Lanka when both nations signed a Plan of Action to strengthen their Strategic Cooperative Partnership.

Following the defeat of Rajapaksa in the 2015 election, the relationship with China grew cold initially but warmed up again after President Maithripala Sirisena, who was the former SLFP general secretary, took a more assertive role in the country’s foreign relations.

Looking at Sri Lanka’s post-independence history, it becomes clear that China engages more actively when centre-left parties or politicians are in power.

This is particularly relevant for the 2024 presidential election, where the two main contenders are Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Sajith Premadasa. While neither represents the SLFP nor the UNP directly, Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) is rooted in the centre-left political tradition, with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) — the dominant force in the NPP — having emerged from the pro-China wing of the Sri Lanka Communist Party in the 1960s.

On the other hand, Sajith Premadasa represents a reformed version of the UNP, with his SJB being a breakaway faction. Premadasa is also the son of Ranasinghe Premadasa, a former president who contested on the UNP ticket, and SJB members have often criticized Chinese funding in Sri Lanka.

Given this historical context, it seems likely that Chinese engagement with Sri Lanka would increase under a Dissanayake presidency while remaining more cautious under Premadasa. This also helps explain the low level of Chinese involvement under the current Wickremesinghe administration, which is the leader of the UNP. Understanding this historical trend offers valuable insight into how China might approach its relations with Sri Lanka following the 2024 election.

-thediplomat.com

 

 

 

 

Editor_1
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