Ranil denies Sri Lanka will be tied to China deals

www.theaustralian.com.au: Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has vowed that if he is re-elected today Sri Lanka will remain non-aligned, open to all foreign investment and committed to “securing maritime sea routes in the Indian Ocean” for all shipping.

His message, in an interview with The Australian, will be welcomed by regional neighbours India and Japan, as well as the US, which viewed with concern former president and now prime-ministerial hopeful Mahinda Rajapaksa’s close alignment with Beijing.

The three-time Prime Minister, who formed a minority nat­ional coalition government with President Maithripala Sirisena after the former Health Minister defeated Rajapaksa in polls in January, also reiterated assurances there would be no resumption of asylum boats leaving Sri Lanka’s coast under his United National Front for Good Governance. “I can’t see any boat movement in future. Our politicians are not in the boat business,” he said at his Temple Trees residence.

The UNFGG of Wickremesinghe is tipped to be returned to power in today’s parliamentary poll, although it is unclear whether it will secure enough of a majority to prevent a Rajapaksa bloc from stymieing his reform agenda, which includes a new constitution, reconciling the Tamil north and east with the rest of the country and stamping out graft.

He said several major Chinese projects signed under the former government would go ahead after they were suspended pending corruption probes, albeit with renegotiated terms to ensure “our sovereignty is not compromised”.

Beijing has already invested billions in Sri Lanka as part of its plans to build a Maritime Silk Route to the Middle East and Europe, though some fear it will used by the military.

The Prime Minister dismissed those suspicions: “We have no military deals with China. Everyone else is free to give us concessional loans and to come and invest here. It is for them to give more than China. “Submarines have been docking in Sri Lanka from the time of World War II. It’s a question of how we control it and being sensitive to the needs of everyone. There will be submarines from different countries at different times. We have one policy on this. We must have naval exchanges.”

Wickremesinghe said China’s navy posed no “serious competition” in the Indian Ocean to the more experienced fleets of the US, Australia and Japan, and did not rule out Sri Lankan involvement in regional multilateral naval exercises in the future.

“We will be looking at securing the maritime sea routes in the Indian Ocean so that all shipping can use it,” he said. “We want to ensure the shipping routes are ­secure. That’s our lifeblood.” His comments on Indian Ocean freedom of navigation and asylum boats will be welcomed by Canberra, whose relationship with Colombo dipped following Rajapaksa’s defeat. Wickremesinghe has previously accused the Abbott government of turning a blind eye to human rights abuses committed under the previous government in exchange for co-operation on stopping asylum-seeker boats from heading to Australia.

Queensland senator James McGrath, an adviser to the opposition UNP during the 2010 Sri Lankan presidential election, said a Wickremesinghe-led government would be good news for Australia. “My personal view is it is better for Australia to have a UNP government in power in Sri Lanka than the Rajapaksas, who are driven only by how deep they can line their own pockets,” McGrath said yesterday.

“I thought the Rajapaksa government was a bad government for Sri Lankan and the relationship between Australia and Sri Lanka can only improve with the election of Ranil as PM.”