Editorial: Dragon in the room

Hyderabad: Given its hegemonic actions and blatant breach of international protocols in the recent past, China’s move to dock its spy ship in Sri Lanka must be viewed with suspicion. India’s concerns in this regard are quite justified as the ‘Yuan Wang 5’ is a powerful tracking vessel whose significant aerial reach — reportedly around […]

Hyderabad: Given its hegemonic actions and blatant breach of international protocols in the recent past, China’s move to dock its spy ship in Sri Lanka must be viewed with suspicion. India’s concerns in this regard are quite justified as the ‘Yuan Wang 5’ is a powerful tracking vessel whose significant aerial reach — reportedly around 750 km — means that several ports in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh could be on China’s radar. There are fears that several vital installations in South India too could be under threat of being snooped upon. On its part, the crisis-ridden Sri Lanka, which is in dire need of China’s help, made a U-turn and allowed the ship to dock at Hambantota, a strategically important deep sea port in southern Sri Lanka. Ever since the Chinese took the Hambantota port on a 99-year lease in 2017, India and the United States have voiced concern that it could harm their interests. Ships of the Yuan Wang class can monitor the lands they pass. Colombo leased the Hambantota port to China Merchants Port Holdings after Sri Lanka was unable to keep its loan repayment commitments. In the past too, India has taken a strong view of the presence of Chinese military vessels in the Indian Ocean and has raised the matter with Colombo without much success. It is unfortunate that Sri Lanka has chosen to ignore India’s security concerns and instead allowed itself to be prevailed over by Beijing’s financial and strategic muscle.

It is all the more deplorable, given the fact that New Delhi has provided a lifeline to Sri Lanka in the hour of crisis, extending economic assistance of nearly $4 billion. Though Beijing has dismissed the security concerns and claimed that the marine scientific research activities of the vessel will not impact the security or economic interests of any other country, the facts simply do not add up. China uses its Yuan Wang class ships to track satellite, rocket and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launches. It has seven such tracking ships capable of operating throughout the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. The ships supplement Beijing’s land-based tracking stations. These space support ships are operated by the People’s Liberation Army’s Strategic Support Force, which is a theatre command-level organisation established to centralise the PLA’s strategic space, cyber, electronic, information, communications, and psychological warfare missions and capabilities. The latest episode reflects how deeply Colombo is indebted to China which has become the biggest investor in Sri Lanka, building expressways, ports, power projects and many of such infrastructural needs. This has created a debt trap problem for the country, which owes $1.3 billion to China. In fact, the island nation has become a victim of China’s debt trap policy.

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