The accusation, made in a statement by the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka on Sunday, is the first time the Indian government has used the descriptor and is a rare intervention in cross-strait issues as India grapples with tensions of its own. border with China. Earlier this month a Chinese military research vessel docked at the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota for a week. Analysts say the Yuan Wang 5 is among a group of Chinese ships operated by the People’s Liberation Army that monitor launches of satellites, missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The docking of the Yuan Wang 5 was delayed for several days after India objected, amid fears that Beijing intends to use the port as a military base. China’s foreign ministry had said the vessel was carrying out maritime research, in accordance with international law and practice, and would not affect “the security and economic interests of any country”. The Yuan Wang 5 left a week ago, but over the weekend China’s embassy in Sri Lanka accused India of using security concerns to carry out “de facto thorough interference in Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and independence”. On Saturday, India’s high commission in Colombo said Sri Lanka “needs support, not unwanted pressure or unnecessary confrontations to serve another country’s agenda”. He also referred to “debt-based agendas”, in an apparent reference to the Chinese-funded Hambantota port, which is often linked to accusations of Chinese debt-trap diplomacy. Sri Lanka is currently emerging from its worst economic crisis and balancing the competing influences of India and China, which analysts say is needed. Chinese loans account for about 10% of the country’s total foreign debt. But as of this year, India has also lent about $3.8 billion to help Sri Lanka overcome its financial crisis. Wen-ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University who specializes in Taiwan and China, said Delhi was creating “new negotiating leverage” by accusing China of “militarizing” the strait by normalizing “harder rhetoric” that could offers a halt to future negotiations. “Knowing that China does not want escalation on multiple fronts, India is attempting to create new leverage where it did not exist before by inviting China to Taiwan,” Sung said, noting China’s domestic pressures with the upcoming 20th party congress, when President Xi Jinping will seek a third term. The ship docked in Habadota just a week after China completed large-scale military exercises around Taiwan in response to a visit by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Since those exercises ended, China’s military has continued with increased activity that analysts have described as a worrying “new normal”. There are now almost daily crossings of the Media Line, an unofficial border that separates the Taiwan Strait but which China has recently claimed as its sovereign waters. At a time when the US and other allies condemned the exercises, India’s government kept to a more ambiguous statement, saying it was “concerned by recent developments”. “We call for the exercise of restraint, the avoidance of unilateral actions to change the status quo, the de-escalation of tensions and efforts to maintain peace and stability in the region,” said a Foreign Affairs spokesman.
