After losing Burma to the West, the Lankan port of Hambantota and the Pakistani port of Gwadar have become more important for China. If China wants to convert the ocean into a Chinese lake and if Beijing wants to reach the Pakistani Arabian Sea via land, Gwadar is very important for Sino trade and business. If China is to avoid the mess in the Malaca Straits (where Chinese shipping is in sight of Bharati guns in the Andaman islands) China needs Gwadar.
The port of Hambantota is an important pitstop for Chinese shipping as it traverses the long distance from the South China Sea and the sea near the Maldives and through Lanka.
Beijing’s Export-Import Bank, the largest bank in the world will provide a loan of $278.2 million to Sri Lanka to expand the port and link it to the other cities via rail.
Building the new port has stoked tensions in the region. Big bully Bharat is chagrined by Hambantota and Gwadar. Linking Hambantota with the biggest coastal town of Matara will further expand the growing Chinese influence on the island nation that has just emerged from a twenty year civil war stoked by India which funded, trained and supported the LTTE Tamil Tiger terrorists.
It was Pakistani arms and “advisors” and Chinese equipment delivered on the battlefield by Pakistan which defeated the insurgency. Pakistani forces were also on the ground in Lanka defending the integrity of the island nation.
The $59 billion Lankan economy has been increasingly relying on Beijing, both for financing and technical expertise for reconstruction efforts like the port and railway projects.
Delhi fears that the $1.5 billion port gives the Chinese navy a strategic boost in the region.
Lanka has rejected Delhi’s concerns and said China’s presence was strictly for business reasons, not political. Delhi had the opportunity to build the port and help Lanka–Bharat opted to try to bifurcate the tiny island on religious lines and gobble up the island. Bharat failed to divide the island and now Lanka is friendlier to Beijing and Islamabad than Delhi.
