Colonisation of Sri Lanka?

Sri Lankan government recently passed the China Port City Bill in Sri Lanka. According to this bill , Sri Lanka is openly inviting China for development purposes in the former. In addition to pre-occupied Hambantota port , China got a 230+ hectare of land in Sri Lanka for further developments. The opposition calls it a separate state in their own country. The development list will include a creation of Special Economic Zone (an area in which the business and trade laws are different from the rest of the country. SEZs are located within a country’s national borders, and their aims include increasing trade balance, employment, increased investment, job creation and effective administration. To encourage businesses to set up in the zone, financial policies are introduced. These policies typically encompass trading, quotas, customs and labour regulations. Additionally, companies may be offered tax holidays, where upon establishing themselves in a zone, they are granted a period of lower taxation) in Sri Lanka by China.

The matter of shocking fact is, China will issue a “separate passport” for movement in the economic zone and will allow the passing of Yuan currency for trade. Sri Lanka already had a huge amount of yuan going in the country due to the activity of Hambantota port. It is also highly likely that China will invite huge chunk of population from China to live in this Special Economic Zone arena. There will be huge investments from business giants of China in this island integrated with huge investments by native businessmen eventually in Yuan that will certainly increase their currency value in international market.

Don’t we think that the same happened when Britishers colonised India?

First, trade investment, then population, then administration and at last, acquisition .

The Sri Lankan government is just considering the short terms goals of prevention of international image and prevention from debt trap, ignoring the long term impact such as colonisation and territory loss.

Will there be any impact on India?

There will be impact on India. For example, United States, for eyeing on Taliban in Afghanistan, used Rawalpindi as nearby base and settled a huge amount of military there.
Similar is the case here. China will eventually use Sri Lanka as a base which would be having arm length distance with India and majorly, with Andaman and Nicobar Island which holds major defence bases of India such as Floating Dock Navy (FDN-1) at INS Jarawa. So after this , India will be covered with enemies from three sides. Two complete, in the North west and North east and one partial, in South.

It is still not clear what will be India’s stance on this. But only what all we can do is hoping for the best security output and further more strong defence reforms in India in a better manner.