Celebrating the Lunar New Year with the people of China

Saturday, 18 January 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Chinese Lunar New Year falls on 31 January of this year. It is the most important celebration in the Chinese calendar. As common to many Eastern cultures the Lunar New Year is connected with prosperity, peace and forgiveness for past mistakes. Therefore, to a certain extent the Chinese Lunar New Year and our New Year celebrations have similarities centred around family, elders and village communities. However, the most significant characteristic of the Lunar New Year celebration is its universal application beyond the borders of the Peoples Republic of China and spreading to almost all the cities where there is a gathering of Chinese communities. We, whether Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim or Burgher, who are of Sri Lankan origin, can learn from the Chinese celebrations of the Lunar New Year to leave aside differences in backgrounds in terms of provinces, spoken languages as well as where we have been living over long periods of time away from the motherland. The PF wishes to take advantage of the forthcoming New Year celebrations as a period to join the people of China in their celebrations and drive the co-values of the Lunar New Year to fashion our own harmonious relations with different communities in SL. Sri Lanka and China have had centuries old bilateral links. In modern times, the Rubber- Rice Pact (1952) was a landmark event in forging extremely close and cordial relations between the two countries that have spanned six decades. China was a steadfast friend in supporting Sri Lanka’s fight against terrorism. Since then, China has provided generous support for Sri Lanka’s unprecedented infrastructure development program. China’s assistance has always been firmly based on the principle of non-interference in internal affairs. China has played a crucial role in improving both internal and external connectivity. It has supported the completion of the Southern and Airport Expressways. In addition, it has built the Hambantota Port, Colombo South Harbour and the Mattala International Airport. China’s assistance for the Norochcholai Power Plant has enabled Sri Lanka to make a much delayed transition to a more cost-effective power generation mix. China is now shifting its focus to support Sri Lanka to translate the potential created by the infrastructure development into concrete economic activities which would yield attractive returns that enable the servicing of the debt incurred and add to growth and employment. There is already an impressive pipeline of Chinese equity investments. The Colombo South Port has been completed; work has begun on the massive Harbour City Development; and there will be Chinese investments in the Northern Expressway. Priority will also be attached to investing in Light Engineering Industries around Hambantota to use the new Port and Airport. The business rationale is to take advantage of Sri Lanka’s FTA’s with India and Pakistan to access these markets. The Middle East and East Africa will also be accessible and shipping time to Europe and the US is also quicker from Sri Lanka than from any other location in South Asia. The priority that China has attached to reforming its economy is creating incentives for Chinese enterprises to seek investment opportunities abroad. The appreciation of the Yuan and increasing domestic costs, particularly wages, are all creating incentives which will facilitate the next phase of the Sino-Lanka bilateral relationship to shift from ‘borrowing for infrastructure’ to ‘FDI, for exports and productive employment’. In this connection, it is very encouraging that agreement has been reached in principle to sign a bilateral FTA. There have also been extremely positive trends in the inflow of Chinese tourists to Sri Lanka. The Third Plenum of the Communist Party of China has recently approved an extremely ambitious reform program designed to sustain China’s remarkable growth story. The PF wishes the government and people of China every success in implementing these reforms. Since the end of the conflict, the PF has worked on strategies to strengthen people to people relations with friendly Asian countries, particularly China. A landmark Cooperation Memorandum, signed in June 2012 between the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD), based in Beijing, and the PF, has paved the way for opening new avenues for forming stronger ties between the peoples of Sri Lanka and China. The implementation of the Memorandum has focused more on practical achievements and the best example of this is the promotion of Chinese tourism to Sri Lanka. In this regard, the PF organised a high level business delegation on the invitation of CPAPD to visit China resulting in establishing mutually beneficial business relations with the Chinese counter parts. The most noteworthy development so far however, has been the visit of Yan Junqi, Vice-Chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (Deputy Speaker) and Vice President of Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament (CPAPD) to Sri Lanka on the invitation of Milinda Moragoda, Founder of the Pathfinder Foundation in October 2013. Following Yan’s visit significant progress has been made in furthering specific areas of practical cooperation involving Sri Lankan and Chinese partners. The PF will continue to attach the highest priority to playing a catalytic role in strengthening the Sri Lanka-China bilateral relationship.