SLCFA requests new Chinese ambassador to adhere to Zhou Enlai’s Eight Principles for Economic Aid and Technical Assistance in Sri Lanka

The appointment of an experienced Chinese diplomat as the Chinese ambassador to Sri Lanka was welcome at a time when distant powers along with their regional allies were trying to militarise the Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka – China Friendship Association (SLCFA) has said welcoming Ambassador Qi Zhenhong to the country.

Excperts of the SLCFA message: “Ambassador Qi Zhenhong headed the China Institute of International Studies, a premier International Relations Think Tank in China, and thus has an excellent understanding of the complex realities in the Indian Ocean. Hence we could expect the new Ambassador to be well aware that when former Sri Lankan Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandarnaike took the lead in making the UN declare the Indian Ocean a Zone of Peace, and when Chairman Mao Zedong was the Core of the Chinese Nation and Premier Zhou Enlai guided the international relations, that China was the main supporter of the proposal and galvanized the members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM),” President of the SLCFA Ananda Goonatilleke said issuing a press release.

 Ambassador Qi Zhenhong takes charge at a time when the actions of USA, India and several other countries are rapidly militarizing the Indian Ocean and is applying pressure on smaller nations to come into agreements that are against the non-aligned principals. The increasing militarization of the Indian Ocean does not bode well for international cooperation and world peace as most of the world’s trade passes through this region and the increased military presence of one group would invite a counterforce of relative size. Realizing the dangers of this development, President Rajapaksa has also expressed his desire of making Indian Ocean a Zone of Peace and SLCFA hopes that Ambassador Qi Zhenhong takes the initiative in helping Sri Lanka achieve this objective.

“People of Sri Lanka have warm feelings towards China not only because it has assisted us in economic, security and diplomatic fields at our hours of need but also because it has inspired Sri Lanka to remain nonaligned and also without being a strategic partner of any foreign power. Though China is geographically a distant country, it has been the blood brother of our people more than any of Sri Lanka’s close neighbors, fundamentally because of her socialist, anti-hegemonic national principles and foreign policy strictly based on Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,” he said.

In economic relations, the SLCFA most earnestly requested Ambassador Qi Zhenhong to consider possibilities of implementing the world renowned “Chinese Government’s Eight Principles for Economic Aid and Technical Assistance” in Sri Lanka, earlier proclaimed by Premier Zhou Enlai on January 15th 1964 in Africa (Ghana). Such an economic principle coupled with anti-hegemonic foreign policy would definitely reestablish warm feelings within our people to withstand any alien conspiracy launched to stigmatize friendship between our two peoples.