India is afraid of spy attacks
Sri Lanka allows Chinese spy ships to dock

17/08/2022, 11:00am (updated)

Beijing is one of Sri Lanka’s largest lenders. The island nation is now allowing Chinese surveillance vessels to enter. In India, the news is causing concern.

After days of delays, a military surveillance ship from China was cleared to dock at a port in the crisis-hit nation of Sri Lanka – despite security concerns in neighboring India. According to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Colombo, “Yuan Wang 5” will arrive at the southern port of Hambantota on Tuesday (16 August) and stay there until 22 August.

The ship belonging to China’s People’s Liberation Army and which media reports say is used to track satellites and ICBMs and is also described as a spy ship, was supposed to have docked there last Thursday. True, Sri Lanka did not give a specific reason for delaying the ship’s arrival. However, security concerns on the Indian side are suspected to be behind this.

The Indian government has expressed concern that surveillance vessels could spy on military installations given Sri Lanka’s proximity to the Indian mainland. However, the Foreign Ministry in Colombo assured that the Chinese ship would dock in Sri Lanka only to load supplies.

India has provided extensive aid, including food, fuel, medicines and cooking gas, to neighboring Sri Lanka, which is mired in a deep economic crisis. At the same time, Sri Lanka is dependent on China, one of the country’s biggest lenders, agreeing to loan restructuring. This is considered a condition of Sri Lanka’s expected International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout program.

China has lent Sri Lanka billions of dollars in development projects, some of which critics say do little for the tiny but strategically important island nation in the Indian Ocean. This includes the Hambantota port, which Sri Lanka leased to China in 2017 because it failed to pay its debts. According to media reports, India is concerned that the Hambantota port could serve as a military base in Beijing in the future. Close to major shipping lines from Asia to Europe.

(This article was first published on Sunday, August 14, 2022.)