Features
Sinophobia is a distraction: Here’s why
Over the last few weeks, a tsunami of Sinophobia in the mainstream media and social media has turned the world’s next superpower into its next colonial power. While the pro-Opposition lobby has been fuelling much hysteria over China’s intentions in the country, a section of the nationalist lobby has joined the battle as well.
This hysteria has been facilitated by the government’s failure to address such concerns as the choice of language on certain sign boards. The official response to these concerns has been too little, too late. In fact, it’s hard to say there’s been any response at all, apart from a few tweets by MPs that have fanned the flames more than they have snuffed them out.
The result of all this is that today, sections of Sri Lanka’s middle-class perceive China as an imperialist superpower engaged in pulling the country into its sphere of influence. Whether it’s Chinese women talking in Sinhala or a 19th generation Chinese descendant of a 15th century Sinhala prince attending a Vesak festival in Beijing, this middle-class tends to demonise China as a colonial behemoth entrapping the Third World through investment projects.
While government apathy must take the blame for letting criticism of such projects become a cover for Sinophobic agitprop, these fears remain unfounded at best and unwarranted at worst. It is certainly ironic that liberals who rail against xenophobia echo xenophobic rhetoric vis-à-vis China. But that is what they, and their left-liberal counterparts, do.
Such rhetoric often distracts from more pertinent matters. Take the Port City. The moment the regime announced its intention to go ahead with it, the Opposition jumped on the bandwagon, accusing the government of selling the country’s sovereignty. Despite several officials, including Justice Minister Ali Sabri, pointing out that the legal framework governing the Port City wouldn’t permit foreign interests to prevail over national sovereignty, the SJB and the JVP denounced the SLPP for bartering the country to China. Even when the Supreme Court determined that certain amendments needed to be incorporated, and that after incorporating them a simple majority in parliament was all it would take to pass the Bill, Opposition MPs continued to attack it, alleging that the President would fill the Commission with Chinese officials.
Of course, this is not what the President did: in place of seven Chinese satraps, he appointed seven locals from the private sector and legal profession. With that the Opposition’s grumbling died down, though echoes remain; the problem now is not the nationality of those officials, but their competence: “uninspired” is what Harsha de Silva calls them.
What problems does the Port City represent? For that matter, what benefits? Pro-government forces paint it as our next big hub, a mega-Free Trade Zone that will turn us into a Singapore. Such optimism seems misplaced, because Singapore’s rise to what it is now took place against a certain backdrop, and the conditions that facilitated its growth are hard to obtain here.
This, of course, is not to prick at balloons. But any rhetoric in support of the Port City must of necessity begin from the premise that, while ambitious in scope, it is not the only or even the ideal way through which Sri Lanka can fast-track development. Trade and investment are fine, certainly. But it has to be buttressed by industry, production; whether we like it or not, in that scheme Singapore should not, and cannot, be our model.
As for problems, it’s not that the Port City is Chinese funded, but that it aims at channelling foreign capital over the backs of workers’ rights, as is the case with every Free Trade Zone we have seen here since 1977. It would be foolhardy to expect the government to talk about this elephant in the room, yet when the Opposition seemingly skirts the issue, one wonders whether it has given up on the working class; as Pradeep Ramanayake (“Sri Lankan opposition mounts anti-China campaign over Colombo Port City bill”, wsws.org) argues, “the so-called campaign to protect Sri Lanka’s sovereignty against China is based principally on the fact that Beijing funded the Port City project and has indicated its readiness to invest more.” If that is what criticism of “Chinese projects” amounts to, well, it’s less a critique than it is a distraction.
That brings me to another concern: the future course of our foreign relations.
Let me be very clear here. Sri Lanka must do anything and everything it can to avoid getting entangled in confrontations between India, China, and the US. Perceptions of the Rajapaksas getting the country closer to China have not gone down well with Indian security officials, nor should we expect them to anytime soon. That is, to be sure, worrying.
On the other hand, not all such officials voice the fears our MPs trot out. To give one example, R. Hariharan in the Daily O (“Why China’s Colombo Port City project in Sri Lanka is unsettling for India”) notes that, despite its challenge to India’s regional interests, the Colombo Port City can “if imaginatively packaged… add a competitive edge to maritime trade.”
While US-funded think-tanks and Indian academics attached to them continue to echo the US line, advocating deeper ties with Washington, officials closer to home, whose experience with China goes back decades, have been more nuanced in their assessments of Sri Lanka-Beijing relations. This does not make their assessments of those relations more optimistic, but it does make them less cynical than the prognostications of think-tank academics. That the latter do not cut China much slack should worry us for sure, but not excessively.
Sri Lankan academics don’t cut China much slack either. Two articles written 10 years apart, however, offer an alternative viewpoint: Nilanthi Samaranayake’s “Are Sri Lanka’s Relations with China Deepening? An Analysis of Economic, Military, and Diplomatic Data” (2011) and Bhagya Senaratne’s “Chinese Financing in South Asia: The Story of Sri Lanka” (2021).
Samaranayake’s essay, the more incisive of the two, doesn’t just counter conventional myths about the China-Sri Lanka nexus, but questions conventional international relations paradigms generally used by China’s critics to scrutinise its presence in countries like ours: its conclusion is that Sri Lanka is neither “bandwagoning with” nor “balancing” China, as traditional IR theory would suggest. Senaratne does not go this far, but she reaches just about the same conclusion: that most estimates of Chinese influence in Sri Lanka ignore domestic pressures, and that it is these pressures, rather than exogenous factors, that have compelled the country, even when the party in power projected an anti-China line, to seek China. This was as true of the 1965-1970 UNP regime as it was of the 2015-2019 UNP-led yahapalana regime.
The UNP, of course, is the last party to get advice for this issue from. Shelton Kodikara’s study of Indo-Lanka relations (Domestic Politics and Diplomacy: A Study of Linkage Politics in Indo-Sri Lanka Relations) points at how successive UNP regimes vacillated between anti-Indian and anti-Chinese sentiment, siding with the one or the other or pushing against both when it suited their interests. Owing to that myopic (and obtuse) approach, in its first decade of independence Sri Lanka managed to exclude not just India and China, two key and influential global players, but also the Soviet Union. The UNP’s tilt to India in the face of Sirima Bandaranaike’s involvement in the 1962 Sino-India War, in that sense, was more a distraction than a coherently articulated position, as its volte-face over China after 1965 showed. Indeed, if there’s a thread binding the UNP then to the UNP now, it’s this persistently one-sided view of the world that places the West at the centre of the universe to the exclusion of all other players.
But that’s the UNP. The SJB is not the UNP. Nor should it try to be a UNP. Critics of the SJB, on social media particularly, wonder whether the SJB is turning into an SLPP Lite. I rather think the bigger worry is if it turns into a UNP Lite. The SJB should possess what the parent party did not, namely a healthy dose of realism. Realism should, in fact, dictate its engagements with the rest of the world. Regarding China, it should persevere in critiquing the likes of Port City and foreign investments in the country without demonising the countries funding them. This is not because China deserves blank cheques from our Opposition, but because our Opposition should not echo xenophobic agitprop passing for criticism of foreign policy that its parent party engaged in over our relations with India, the Soviet Union, and China.
Sinophobia in the present conjuncture is a distraction. In fact it has little to no impact on the consciousness of the many. The SJB must evolve a comprehensive critique of our foreign policy blunders which avoids demonising particular countries. The latter, of course, was the approach the UNP opted for, back then. The SJB cannot afford to emulate the UNP, right now.
The writer can be reached at
by Dr Gotabhya Ranasinghe
Senior Consultant Cardiologist
National Hospital Sri Lanka
When we sought a meeting with Hon Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, Minister of Health, he graciously cleared his busy schedule to accommodate us. Renowned for his attentive listening and deep understanding, Minister Pathirana is dedicated to advancing the health sector. His openness and transparency exemplify the qualities of an exemplary politician and minister.
Dr. Palitha Mahipala, the current Health Secretary, demonstrates both commendable enthusiasm and unwavering support. This combination of attributes makes him a highly compatible colleague for the esteemed Minister of Health.
Our discussion centered on a project that has been in the works for the past 30 years, one that no other minister had managed to advance.
Minister Pathirana, however, recognized the project’s significance and its potential to revolutionize care for heart patients.
The project involves the construction of a state-of-the-art facility at the premises of the National Hospital Colombo. The project’s location within the premises of the National Hospital underscores its importance and relevance to the healthcare infrastructure of the nation.
This facility will include a cardiology building and a tertiary care center, equipped with the latest technology to handle and treat all types of heart-related conditions and surgeries.
Securing funding was a major milestone for this initiative. Minister Pathirana successfully obtained approval for a $40 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank. With the funding in place, the foundation stone is scheduled to be laid in September this year, and construction will begin in January 2025.
This project guarantees a consistent and uninterrupted supply of stents and related medications for heart patients. As a result, patients will have timely access to essential medical supplies during their treatment and recovery. By securing these critical resources, the project aims to enhance patient outcomes, minimize treatment delays, and maintain the highest standards of cardiac care.
Upon its fruition, this monumental building will serve as a beacon of hope and healing, symbolizing the unwavering dedication to improving patient outcomes and fostering a healthier society.We anticipate a future marked by significant progress and positive outcomes in Sri Lanka’s cardiovascular treatment landscape within the foreseeable timeframe.
by Fr. Emmanuel Fernando, OMI
Jesuit Fr. Aloysius Pieris (affectionately called Fr. Aloy) celebrated his 90th birthday on April 9, 2024 and I, as the editor of our Oblate Journal, THE MISSIONARY OBLATE had gone to press by that time. Immediately I decided to publish an article, appreciating the untiring selfless services he continues to offer for inter-Faith dialogue, the renewal of the Catholic Church, his concern for the poor and the suffering Sri Lankan masses and to me, the present writer.
It was in 1988, when I was appointed Director of the Oblate Scholastics at Ampitiya by the then Oblate Provincial Fr. Anselm Silva, that I came to know Fr. Aloy more closely. Knowing well his expertise in matters spiritual, theological, Indological and pastoral, and with the collaborative spirit of my companion-formators, our Oblate Scholastics were sent to Tulana, the Research and Encounter Centre, Kelaniya, of which he is the Founder-Director, for ‘exposure-programmes’ on matters spiritual, biblical, theological and pastoral. Some of these dimensions according to my view and that of my companion-formators, were not available at the National Seminary, Ampitiya.
Ever since that time, our Oblate formators/ accompaniers at the Oblate Scholasticate, Ampitiya , have continued to send our Oblate Scholastics to Tulana Centre for deepening their insights and convictions regarding matters needed to serve the people in today’s context. Fr. Aloy also had tried very enthusiastically with the Oblate team headed by Frs. Oswald Firth and Clement Waidyasekara to begin a Theologate, directed by the Religious Congregations in Sri Lanka, for the contextual formation/ accompaniment of their members. It should very well be a desired goal of the Leaders / Provincials of the Religious Congregations.
Besides being a formator/accompanier at the Oblate Scholasticate, I was entrusted also with the task of editing and publishing our Oblate journal, ‘The Missionary Oblate’. To maintain the quality of the journal I continue to depend on Fr. Aloy for his thought-provoking and stimulating articles on Biblical Spirituality, Biblical Theology and Ecclesiology. I am very grateful to him for his generous assistance. Of late, his writings on renewal of the Church, initiated by Pope St. John XX111 and continued by Pope Francis through the Synodal path, published in our Oblate journal, enable our readers to focus their attention also on the needed renewal in the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. Fr. Aloy appreciated very much the Synodal path adopted by the Jesuit Pope Francis for the renewal of the Church, rooted very much on prayerful discernment. In my Religious and presbyteral life, Fr.Aloy continues to be my spiritual animator / guide and ongoing formator / acccompanier.
Fr. Aloysius Pieris, BA Hons (Lond), LPh (SHC, India), STL (PFT, Naples), PhD (SLU/VC), ThD (Tilburg), D.Ltt (KU), has been one of the eminent Asian theologians well recognized internationally and one who has lectured and held visiting chairs in many universities both in the West and in the East. Many members of Religious Congregations from Asian countries have benefited from his lectures and guidance in the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) in Manila, Philippines. He had been a Theologian consulted by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences for many years. During his professorship at the Gregorian University in Rome, he was called to be a member of a special group of advisers on other religions consulted by Pope Paul VI.
Fr. Aloy is the author of more than 30 books and well over 500 Research Papers. Some of his books and articles have been translated and published in several countries. Among those books, one can find the following: 1) The Genesis of an Asian Theology of Liberation (An Autobiographical Excursus on the Art of Theologising in Asia, 2) An Asian Theology of Liberation, 3) Providential Timeliness of Vatican 11 (a long-overdue halt to a scandalous millennium, 4) Give Vatican 11 a chance, 5) Leadership in the Church, 6) Relishing our faith in working for justice (Themes for study and discussion), 7) A Message meant mainly, not exclusively for Jesuits (Background information necessary for helping Francis renew the Church), 8) Lent in Lanka (Reflections and Resolutions, 9) Love meets wisdom (A Christian Experience of Buddhism, 10) Fire and Water 11) God’s Reign for God’s poor, 12) Our Unhiddden Agenda (How we Jesuits work, pray and form our men). He is also the Editor of two journals, Vagdevi, Journal of Religious Reflection and Dialogue, New Series.
Fr. Aloy has a BA in Pali and Sanskrit from the University of London and a Ph.D in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of Sri Lankan, Vidyodaya Campus. On Nov. 23, 2019, he was awarded the prestigious honorary Doctorate of Literature (D.Litt) by the Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya, the Most Venerable Welamitiyawe Dharmakirthi Sri Kusala Dhamma Thera.
Fr. Aloy continues to be a promoter of Gospel values and virtues. Justice as a constitutive dimension of love and social concern for the downtrodden masses are very much noted in his life and work. He had very much appreciated the commitment of the late Fr. Joseph (Joe) Fernando, the National Director of the Social and Economic Centre (SEDEC) for the poor.
In Sri Lanka, a few religious Congregations – the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Christian Brothers, the Marist Brothers and the Oblates – have invited him to animate their members especially during their Provincial Congresses, Chapters and International Conferences. The mainline Christian Churches also have sought his advice and followed his seminars. I, for one, regret very much, that the Sri Lankan authorities of the Catholic Church –today’s Hierarchy—- have not sought Fr.
Aloy’s expertise for the renewal of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka and thus have not benefited from the immense store of wisdom and insight that he can offer to our local Church while the Sri Lankan bishops who governed the Catholic church in the immediate aftermath of the Second Vatican Council (Edmund Fernando OMI, Anthony de Saram, Leo Nanayakkara OSB, Frank Marcus Fernando, Paul Perera,) visited him and consulted him on many matters. Among the Tamil Bishops, Bishop Rayappu Joseph was keeping close contact with him and Bishop J. Deogupillai hosted him and his team visiting him after the horrible Black July massacre of Tamils.
Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
By Gomi Senadhira
senadhiragomi@gmail.com
“You might tell fairy tales, but the progress of a country cannot be achieved through such narratives. A country cannot be developed by making false promises. The country moved backward because of the electoral promises made by political parties throughout time. We have witnessed that the ultimate result of this is the country becoming bankrupt. Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet.” – President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 2024 Budget speech
Any Sri Lankan would agree with the above words of President Wickremesinghe on the false promises our politicians and officials make and the fairy tales they narrate which bankrupted this country. So, to understand this, let’s look at one such fairy tale with lots of false promises; Ranil Wickremesinghe’s greatest achievement in the area of international trade and investment promotion during the Yahapalana period, Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SLSFTA).
It is appropriate and timely to do it now as Finance Minister Wickremesinghe has just presented to parliament a bill on the National Policy on Economic Transformation which includes the establishment of an Office for International Trade and the Sri Lanka Institute of Economics and International Trade.
Was SLSFTA a “Cleverly negotiated Free Trade Agreement” as stated by the (former) Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate on the SLSFTA in July 2018, or a colossal blunder covered up with lies, false promises, and fairy tales? After SLSFTA was signed there were a number of fairy tales published on this agreement by the Ministry of Development Strategies and International, Institute of Policy Studies, and others.
However, for this article, I would like to limit my comments to the speech by Minister Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate, and the two most important areas in the agreement which were covered up with lies, fairy tales, and false promises, namely: revenue loss for Sri Lanka and Investment from Singapore. On the other important area, “Waste products dumping” I do not want to comment here as I have written extensively on the issue.
1. The revenue loss
During the Parliamentary Debate in July 2018, Minister Samarawickrama stated “…. let me reiterate that this FTA with Singapore has been very cleverly negotiated by us…. The liberalisation programme under this FTA has been carefully designed to have the least impact on domestic industry and revenue collection. We have included all revenue sensitive items in the negative list of items which will not be subject to removal of tariff. Therefore, 97.8% revenue from Customs duty is protected. Our tariff liberalisation will take place over a period of 12-15 years! In fact, the revenue earned through tariffs on goods imported from Singapore last year was Rs. 35 billion.
The revenue loss for over the next 15 years due to the FTA is only Rs. 733 million– which when annualised, on average, is just Rs. 51 million. That is just 0.14% per year! So anyone who claims the Singapore FTA causes revenue loss to the Government cannot do basic arithmetic! Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I call on my fellow members of this House – don’t mislead the public with baseless criticism that is not grounded in facts. Don’t look at petty politics and use these issues for your own political survival.”
I was surprised to read the minister’s speech because an article published in January 2018 in “The Straits Times“, based on information released by the Singaporean Negotiators stated, “…. With the FTA, tariff savings for Singapore exports are estimated to hit $10 million annually“.
As the annual tariff savings (that is the revenue loss for Sri Lanka) calculated by the Singaporean Negotiators, Singaporean $ 10 million (Sri Lankan rupees 1,200 million in 2018) was way above the rupees’ 733 million revenue loss for 15 years estimated by the Sri Lankan negotiators, it was clear to any observer that one of the parties to the agreement had not done the basic arithmetic!
Six years later, according to a report published by “The Morning” newspaper, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) on 7th May 2024, Mr Samarawickrama’s chief trade negotiator K.J. Weerasinghehad had admitted “…. that forecasted revenue loss for the Government of Sri Lanka through the Singapore FTA is Rs. 450 million in 2023 and Rs. 1.3 billion in 2024.”
If these numbers are correct, as tariff liberalisation under the SLSFTA has just started, we will pass Rs 2 billion very soon. Then, the question is how Sri Lanka’s trade negotiators made such a colossal blunder. Didn’t they do their basic arithmetic? If they didn’t know how to do basic arithmetic they should have at least done their basic readings. For example, the headline of the article published in The Straits Times in January 2018 was “Singapore, Sri Lanka sign FTA, annual savings of $10m expected”.
Anyway, as Sri Lanka’s chief negotiator reiterated at the COPF meeting that “…. since 99% of the tariffs in Singapore have zero rates of duty, Sri Lanka has agreed on 80% tariff liberalisation over a period of 15 years while expecting Singapore investments to address the imbalance in trade,” let’s turn towards investment.
Investment from Singapore
In July 2018, speaking during the Parliamentary Debate on the FTA this is what Minister Malik Samarawickrama stated on investment from Singapore, “Already, thanks to this FTA, in just the past two-and-a-half months since the agreement came into effect we have received a proposal from Singapore for investment amounting to $ 14.8 billion in an oil refinery for export of petroleum products. In addition, we have proposals for a steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million), sugar refinery ($ 200 million). This adds up to more than $ 16.05 billion in the pipeline on these projects alone.
And all of these projects will create thousands of more jobs for our people. In principle approval has already been granted by the BOI and the investors are awaiting the release of land the environmental approvals to commence the project.
I request the Opposition and those with vested interests to change their narrow-minded thinking and join us to develop our country. We must always look at what is best for the whole community, not just the few who may oppose. We owe it to our people to courageously take decisions that will change their lives for the better.”
According to the media report I quoted earlier, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) Chief Negotiator Weerasinghe has admitted that Sri Lanka was not happy with overall Singapore investments that have come in the past few years in return for the trade liberalisation under the Singapore-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement. He has added that between 2021 and 2023 the total investment from Singapore had been around $162 million!
What happened to those projects worth $16 billion negotiated, thanks to the SLSFTA, in just the two-and-a-half months after the agreement came into effect and approved by the BOI? I do not know about the steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million) and sugar refinery ($ 200 million).
However, story of the multibillion-dollar investment in the Petroleum Refinery unfolded in a manner that would qualify it as the best fairy tale with false promises presented by our politicians and the officials, prior to 2019 elections.
Though many Sri Lankans got to know, through the media which repeatedly highlighted a plethora of issues surrounding the project and the questionable credentials of the Singaporean investor, the construction work on the Mirrijiwela Oil Refinery along with the cement factory began on the24th of March 2019 with a bang and Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his ministers along with the foreign and local dignitaries laid the foundation stones.
That was few months before the 2019 Presidential elections. Inaugurating the construction work Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the projects will create thousands of job opportunities in the area and surrounding districts.
The oil refinery, which was to be built over 200 acres of land, with the capacity to refine 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day, was to generate US$7 billion of exports and create 1,500 direct and 3,000 indirect jobs. The construction of the refinery was to be completed in 44 months. Four years later, in August 2023 the Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal presented by President Ranil Wickremesinghe to cancel the agreement with the investors of the refinery as the project has not been implemented! Can they explain to the country how much money was wasted to produce that fairy tale?
It is obvious that the President, ministers, and officials had made huge blunders and had deliberately misled the public and the parliament on the revenue loss and potential investment from SLSFTA with fairy tales and false promises.
As the president himself said, a country cannot be developed by making false promises or with fairy tales and these false promises and fairy tales had bankrupted the country. “Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet”.
(The writer, a specialist and an activist on trade and development issues . )
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