Features

China without Blinkers

Published

8 months ago

2025/08/31

I was while in Europe last month to spend a couple of days in Sete by the Mediterranean, with Tamara Kunanayagam and her partner Jean Pierre Page. He was a leading light of the French Communist party and though, as with so many left wing movements in the last century it had split, he was trying to redevelop connections. He was also strongly supportive of Jean-Luc Melenchon, the radical former Socialist who put together the coalition that emerged as the largest group in Parliament after the last French election.

Jean-Pierre is highly respected internationally, and in recent years he and Tamara have often been in China at conferences which mark the increasing influence of that country. So, I was delighted when he gave me, when I was leaving, a volume entitled China without Blinkers, which he had edited together with the radical journalist Maxime Vivas.

The basic aim of the book is to correct what it characterizes as deliberate disinformation about China. But in the process it also expounds some of the principles on the basis of which China is increasing its footprint in the world. This is done most effectively in the opening essay in the book, by Tamara, entitled ‘New Cold War or “the Unthinkable War”?’ She examines there the increasing hostility to China’s international advances, beginning with the pivoting towards the Asia-Pacific as he put it by President Obama way back in 2011.

Tamara says that that made clear that America’s principal enemy was no longer the ‘unknown unknown’ terrorist as identified by Donald Rumsfeld, but was rather China, which had not only been getting richer during this century but had also increased its influence in other countries. So we have now seen the development of what is termed the Quad, where traditional American allies such as Australia and Japan were joined with India, and the attempt to entrench the concept of an Indo-Pacific Ocean, where America would increase its primacy with its allies.

But all this is accompanied by a demonizing of China, with propaganda designed to prove that it is exploiting the countries with which it has enhanced dealings. It was such propaganda, swallowed or perhaps regurgitated without conviction, by stooge politicians in this country, that precipitated the economic crisis from which we are now suffering. For the perfectly manageable loans from China were excoriated by the Yahapalanaya government, to be replaced by loans on the international market from private agents on which we are now paying colossal interest.

Tamara’s primary concern however is foreign policy, and she shows how Washington, arguing in terms of freedom of the seas, ignores UN resolutions on territorial waters, and the provision that access should be for peaceful purposes. She also notes how the United States heightens tensions between China and nations in South East Asia with regard to territorial waters, claiming that negotiations between China and the Philippines foundered when the latter was persuaded to demand international arbitration – counter she says to a China ASEAN agreement to work through bilateral discussions without third party involvement. Of course, it could be argued that the Philippines required strengthening in any dispute with China, but underlying this is the American assumption that its hegemony is essential for holding China at bay.

The article following Tamara’s was on a very different topic, ‘On trade and foreign policy: China and some untruths’. But as the title makes clear, this too dealt with disinformation. Much of what is said is well known, but it takes an article like this to put it all together, and make clear the double standards that are involved.

Tony Andreani, emeritus professor at the University of Paris, starts with the criticism in the French mainstream press of the Chinese peril, since it has bought up vineyards and land and companies. European leaders are also worried about Chinese investments in Eastern Europe, which they see as an effort to divide the Union. But as Andreani notes with regard to the sale of Greek and Portuguese public companies, they went to the highest bidder.

The opportunities China offers, whereas the rich Western countries only offer continuing dependence, has led to 17 European countries, including 11 EU members, joining the Silk Road initiative. And there is further evidence of China working on development when it engages in economic relations, as with the infrastructure it has developed in Africa. I still recall an Ethiopian driver telling me how China had developed roads, which the West had not done. This reinforced what a British friend in Cambodia said about why Chinese assistance was highly regarded, whereas the West concentrated on what they called capacity building, ie funding their supporters in mechanisms to ensure perpetuation of their own control.

Jean Pierre Page is categorical about this when he shows what Western meddling seeks to achieve in Hong Kong. But only in passing does he note that the claim that the West is concerned with preserving democracy seems nonsensical in that Hong Kong was only given its own Legislative Council just before it was handed over to China. Until then, for one and a half centuries, it had been ruled by a British governor, with no regard for the wishes of the natives – and indeed harsh measures when workers seemed to be getting out of control, which might have limited the massive profits British companies were repatriating. These of course went back more than a century, dating back to the days of supply of opium to the natives, a commitment to free trade that crippled China and led to its virtual enslavement for a century.

I used to think that the Americans acted to promote freedom when after the Second World War they took the lead in giving independence to the Philippines, and expected the European powers to follow suit. But I had not registered then that American imperialism worked through economic domination, facilitated by their pet rulers, whom they would protect at any cost. This involved relentless support to dictators, as we have seen in Latin America. And when the natives got out of hand, support for the overthrow of a recalcitrant leader, as in the case of Indonesia, was immediate.

China too has dealt with dictators, but it has not engaged in regime change to promote its own interests. And as we have found out to our cost, following the relentless propaganda about the Rajapaksas selling the country to the Chinese, the loans they provided, far from holding us in a debt trap, were much better for us than the private loans we took under the guidance of Western oriented policy makers.

China without blinkers is most illuminating about the manner in which the Chinese economy has grown, while at the same time China has done its best to avoid the worst elements in unbridled capitalism whereby the rich get richer and richer whilst the worst off go to the wall. As John Rawls argued half a century back, making the cake grow does not mean that the slices of all who share in it get larger.

He also argued that socialism as generally practiced led to the cake not growing. But China in embracing individual enterprise, has made sure that opportunities for the worst off are expanded, and so the poverty levels in China have diminished in the last couple of decades. This is quite unlike what happens in some Western countries, where safety nets have been reduced, or indeed never really existed.

Apart from the article on Hong Kong, there are two more that deal with areas in which the West has shown particular interest, claiming that the Chinese government is exploiting minorities and destroying their identity. These are Tibet and Xinjiang. In the case of the former, whatever respect and affection the Dalai Lama commands, there is little doubt that the regime he presided over was authoritarian with little done to develop the lot of the peasantry. Those of us who have visited Tibet have seen its development, and also the continuation of the monastic life including within the Potala.

Albert Ettinger, a retired professor from Luxembourg, writes incisively about violence in Tibet before the Chinese took over, when it had an army ‘equipped and trained by the British. Its officers wore colonial pith helmets, its military band played “God Save the King” and “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”.’ And the violence he records gives the lie to the myth of a land full of ‘innate goodness and love of neighbour’.

We have heard repeatedly of the colonization of Tibet by Han Chinese, but Ettinger claims that, at the last census, in 2010, the population was 91% Tibetan. Whether this is correct I do not know, but he seems on surer ground when he notes that a city claimed to be now 97% Chinese was part of the first Chinese empire and protected by the Great Wall.

If the charm of the Dalai Lama seems to strengthen the case against the Chinese in Tibet, far otherwise is the alternative the west promotes in Xinjiang, namely fundamentalist Islam. As Maxime Vivas, the co-editor of the book puts it in his article on this phenomenon, ‘Here in France, under the pretext that democracy can be perfected in China, the muddle-headed are championing the victory of Sharia law. They are like Gribouille, the folk tale character, who throws himself into a pond so that the rain does not spoil his fine suit’.

One example of disinformation should suffice to make clear the general picture. China was accused of using a World Bank loan to establish vocational training centres to build concentration camps, but when the Bank looked into this, it reported that its ‘review did not substantiate the allegations’.

That project, which the Bank itself cleared of the allegations against it, indicates what China has done to develop the area and thus reduce the appeal of fundamentalism. Sadly Pakistan, which slithered towards fundamentalism when it was a close ally of the United States, never thought of such a simple remedy, and it is clear that in Africa too the economic development that would limit the spread of fundamentalism is not foremost on the agenda.

Vivas has a wonderful time giving examples of the sort of misinformation the West propagated to justify its aggression towards leaders it loathed, and claims that Mike Pompeo, later Secretary of State, confessed in a talk in 2019 that as Director of the CIA in the preceding year ‘We lied, we cheated, we stole’. And later he notes that the canard about 500,000 slaves in the cotton fields of Xinjiang must be absurd, ‘when harvesting has been highly mechanised’.

The case of Xinjiang, and other allegations against China in the popular media of the West, are dispassionately analysed in the preface to the book by Mobo Gao, Professor of Chinese at Adelaide University and Director of the Confucius Institute there. He rubbishes the allegations about control of the non-Han population by pointing out, what I did not know previously, that the one-child policy was confined to the Han Chinese and minorities were exempt.

However when the policy, having succeeded in reducing population growth, was changed to allow two children, the exemptions were abolished. This has contributed to claims that minorities are now being unfairly restricted. Yet, as the article makes clear, if anyone suffered – and in the long run China seems to have benefited by the restriction on population growth – it was the Han Chinese, with as he points out the current President having just one daughter, the Prime Minister at the time he wrote only one child.

He also rubbishes the canard about forced labour, though he does grant that the conditions of migrant labour are sad. But this is true with regard to most migrant labour and he notes that, when China began its massive industrialization programme, the Han Chinese also suffered when they moved to factories in urban areas. But they moved, as our migrant labour does, because conditions were better than the rural poverty they had lived in previously.

Gao does not make pointed comparisons, with for instance the continuing poverty of workers in banana plantations in countries the West controls, though he does mention that things are now improving, which has not been the case in banana republics. But he does gently note why these tales of woe rouse anger – ‘Given the colonial slave labour, whether African labourers or aboriginal Australians and Western colonial genocides of the indigenous, and given the Holocaust in Europe itself, the narrative of slave labour and genocide, understandably rouses indignation and sentiment of horror.’

In acknowledging poor labour conditions when China industrialized, Gao notes how this was music to the ears of the West, until that is China ceased to be ‘a junior partner, or more accurately, an apprentice of capitalism’. Anger started when the West realized how hollow its victory in the Cold War had been, since the outsourcing of ‘manufacturing industries and decades of neoliberal marketiism has resulted in increasing inequality in Western affluent societies’.

Gao notes also how the way in which the Western media reports on China makes nonsense of the claim that its press is free. The way the Voice of America functioned is too well known to require repetition, though now Trump seems to have virtually abolished it, with the decision that ‘One America News (OAN), a far-right, pro-Trump network known for promoting conspiracy theories, will provide news coverage for VOA.’

More insidious than the Americans are the British, for the BBC was long thought to be independent. The recent petition by several staff opposing the manner in which the BBC had projected the Israeli perspective in covering the crisis in that region makes clear the restrictions that admittedly often idealistic journalists suffer. Gao simply notes that ‘The influential BBC is supposed to be regulated by Ofcom in its domestic reporting, but Ofcom does not regulate the BBC for its external reporting’.

And of course the private media is much worse, with unrelenting abuse of countries not to the taste of the devotees of Western monopoly capitalism who control it. Extreme instances of this occurred with regard to coronavirus, with even the Washington Post insinuating that the virus may have leaked from the Wuhan laboratory.

At a different level was the criticism of China for being repressive in its measures of control, though these led to the outbreak being contained and fatalities low, as opposed to in the libertarian United States, where the poor suffered disproportionately. Interestingly, one of those who got into the act was Francis Boyle, someone whom I remembered for his extreme allegations against Sri Lanka. Condescendingly, the article ends with the suggestion, without any allegations, that the ‘claim that the virus was created can be turned against the Western transmitter’, noting that the US is the only country to ‘have a bacteriological laboratory for military use’.

This wide ranging volume had a lot of information new to me. But while most of it could have been anticipated, from wider reading and the current international situation, I was surprised by an article on China’s Economic Growth which claimed the foundations for this were built in Mao’s time. Received wisdom, as the article puts it, is that the Chinese economy really began to develop only thanks to its ‘reorientation’ and its opening up to the world capitalist system’.

But the article claims that its GDP grew substantially in the earlier period, and China had put in place in those years the physical capital stock necessary for the economy to take off. The third argument, that China was a major civilization for thousands of years, producing a third of the world’s GNP at the beginning of the 19th century, may not seem so strong. But it is perhaps strong enough in that he claims that the century of Western aggression and exploitation, beginning with the British Opium War of 1942, decimated the country, but its rebuilding began then with the Communist Revolution of 1949.

I was glad that Mao’s commitment to social equity, even if it got out of hand at times, has been recognized, and also the development of education and health services, so that the social capital as necessary for development as physical capital was also in place.

One can understand then the hysteria of the West, which had crushed China so easily in the 19th century, when it began to realize that this giant could no longer be patronized. Given the evidence the book provides about its support for development of poorer countries, even while it pursues its own development goals through better access to raw materials, we can only be thankful that the end of history the West so complacently predicted has given way to a world of different mansions.

‘China without Blinkers’ Edited by Maxime Vivas and Jean-Pierre Page

Reviewed by prof. rajiva wijesinha

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Features

Peace march and promise of reconciliation

Published

22 hours ago

2026/04/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Peace walk in progress

The ongoing peace march by a group of international Buddhist monks has captured the sentiment of Sri Lankans in a manner that few public events have done in recent times. It is led by the Vietnamese monk Venerable Thich Pannakara who is associated with a mindfulness movement that has roots in Vietnamese Buddhist practice and actively promoted among diaspora communities in the United States. The peace march by the monks, accompanied by their mascot, the dog Aloka, has generated affection and goodwill within the Buddhist and larger community. It follows earlier peace walks in the United States where monks carried a similar message of mindfulness and compassion across communities but without any government or even media patronage as in Sri Lanka.

This initiative has the potential to unfold into an effort to nurture a culture of peace in Sri Lanka. Such a culture is necessary if the country as the country prepares to move beyond its history of conflict towards a more longlasting reconciliation and a political solution to its ethnic and religious divisions. The government’s support for the peace march can be seen as part of a broader attempt to shape such a culture. The Clean Sri Lanka programme, promoted by the government as a civic responsibility campaign focused on environmental cleanliness, ethical conduct and social discipline, provides a useful framework within which such initiatives can be situated. Its emphasis on collective responsibility and shared public space makes it sit well with the values that peacebuilding requires.

government’s previous plan to promote a culture of peace was on the occasion of “Sri Lanka Day” celebrations which were scheduled to take place on December 12-14 last year but was disrupted by Cyclone Ditwah. The Sri Lanka Day celebrations were to include those talented individuals from each and every community at the district level who had excelled in some field or the other, such as science, business or arts and culture and selected by the District Secretariats in each of the 25 districts. They were to gather in Colombo to engage in cultural performances and community-focused exhibitions. The government’s intention was to build up a discourse around the ideas of unity in diversity as a precursor to addressing the more contentious topics of human rights violations during the war period, and issues of accountability and reparations for wrongs suffered during that dark period.

Positive Response

The invitation to the international monks appears to have emerged from within Buddhist religious networks in Sri Lanka that have long maintained links with the larger international Buddhist community. The strong support extended by leading temples and clergy within the country, including the Buddhists Mahanayakes indicates that this was not an isolated effort but one that resonated with the mainstream Buddhist establishment. Indeed, the involvement of senior Buddhist leaders has been particularly noteworthy. A Joint Declaration for Peace in the world, drawing on Sri Lanka’s own experience, and by the Mahanayakes of all Buddhist Chapters took place in the context of the ongoing peace march at the Gangaramaya Temple in Colombo, with participation from the diplomatic community. The declaration, calling for compassion, dialogue and sustainable peace, reflects an effort by religious leadership to assert a moral voice in favour of coexistence.

The popular response to the peace march has also been striking. Large numbers of people have been gathering along the route, offering flowers, water and support to the monks. Schoolchildren have been lining the roads, and communities from different religious backgrounds extend hospitality. On the way, the monks were hosted by both a Hindu temple and a mosque, where food and refreshments were provided. These acts, though simple, carry a message about the possibility of harmony among Sri Lanka’s diverse communities. It helps to counter the perception that the Buddhist community in Sri Lanka is inherently nationalist and resistant to minority concerns that was shaped during the decades of war and reinforced by political mobilisation that too often exploited ethnic identity.

By way of contrast, the peace march offers a different image. It shows a readiness among ordinary people to embrace values of compassion and coexistence that are deeply embedded in Buddhist teaching. The Metta Sutta, one of the most well-known discourses in Buddhism, calls for boundless goodwill towards all beings. It states that one should cultivate a mind that is “boundless towards all beings, free from hatred and ill will.” This emphasis on universal compassion provides a moral foundation for peace that extends beyond national or ethnic boundaries. The monks themselves emphasised this point repeatedly during the walk. Venerable Thich Pannakara reminded those who gathered that while acts of generosity are commendable, mindfulness in everyday life is even more important. He warned that as people become unmindful, they are more prone to react with anger and hatred, thereby contributing to conflict.

More Initiatives

The presence of political leaders at key moments of the march has emphasised the significance that the government attaches to the event. Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya paid her respects to the peace march monks in Kandy, while President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is expected to do so at the conclusion of the march in Colombo. Such gestures signal an alignment between political authority and moral aspiration, even if the translation of that aspiration into policy remains a work in progress. At the same time, the peace march has not been without its shortcomings. The walk did not engage with the Northern and Eastern parts of the country, regions that were most affected by the war and where the need for reconciliation is most acute. A more inclusive geographic reach would have strengthened the symbolic impact of the initiative.

In addition, the positive impact of the peace march could have been increased if more effort had been taken to coordinate better with other civic and religious groups and include them in the event. Many civil society and religious harmony groups who would have liked to participate in the peace march found themselves unable to do so. There was no place in the programme for them to join. Even government institutions tasked with promoting social cohesion and reconciliation found themselves outside the loop. The Clean Sri Lanka Task Force that organised the peace march may have felt that involving other groups would have made it more complicated to organise the events which have proceeded without problems.

The hope is that the positive energy and goodwill generated by this peace march will not dissipate but will instead inspire further initiatives with the requisite coordination and leadership. The march has generated public discussion, drawn attention to the values of mindfulness and compassion, and created a space in which people can imagine a different future. It has been a special initiative among the many that are needed to build a culture of peace. A culture of peace cannot be imposed from above nor can it emerge overnight. It needs to be nurtured through multiple efforts across society, including education, religious engagement, civic initiatives and political reform. It is within such a culture that the more difficult questions of power sharing, justice and reconciliation can be addressed in a constructive manner.

by Jehan Perera

Features

Regional Universities

Published

22 hours ago

2026/04/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Development initiatives: Faculty of Technology, University of Jaffna and NCDB

The countryside and peripheral regions have been neglected in the national imagination for many decades. This has also been the case with regional universities which were seen as mere appendages to the university system, and sometimes created to appease political constituencies in the regions. The exclusion of the rural world and the institutions in those regions was not accidental nor inevitable, but the consequence of conscious policies promoted under an extractive and exploitative global order. Neoliberalism globalisation, initiated in the late 1970s with far-reaching policies of free trade and free flow of capital, or the “open economy,” as we call it in Sri Lanka, is now dying. The United States and the Western countries that promoted neoliberalism, as a class project of finance capital to address the falling profits during the long economic downturn in the 1970s, are themselves reversing their policies and are at loggerheads with each other. However, those economic processes will continue to have national consequences into the future.

At the heart of such policies is the neoliberal city, which has become the centre of the economy with expanding financial businesses and a real estate boom. Such financialised cities also had their impact on universities, in lower income countries, where commercialised education with high fees, rising student debt, research for businesses and transnational educational linkages with branch campuses of Western universities, have become a reality.

In the case of Sri Lanka, while neoliberal policies began with the IMF and World Bank Structural Adjustment Programmes, in the late 1970s, the long civil war forestalled the accelerated growth of the neoliberal city. I have argued, over the last decade and a half, that it is with the end of the civil war, in 2009, coinciding with the global financial crisis, that a second wave of neoliberalism in Sri Lanka led to global finance capital being absorbed in infrastructure and real estate in Colombo. The transformation of Colombo into a neoliberal city was overseen by Gotabaya Rajapaksa as Defence Secretary with even the Urban Development Authority brought under the security establishment. While Colombo was drastically changing with a skyline of new buildings and shiny luxury vehicles drawing on massive external debt, there were also moves to promote private higher education institutions. The Board of Investment (BOI) registered many hundred so-called higher education institutions; these were not regulated and many mushroomed like supermarkets and disappeared in no time when they incurred losses.

In contrast to these so-called private higher education institutions that proliferated in and around Colombo, Sri Lanka, drawing on its free education system, has, over the last many decades, also created a number of state universities in peripheral regions. However, these regional universities lack adequate funding and a clear vision and purpose. The current conjuncture with the neoliberal global order unravelling, and the immediate global crisis in energy and transport are grim reminders of the importance of local economies and self-sufficiency. In this column I consider the role of our regional universities and their relationship to the communities within which they are embedded.

Regional context

The necessity and the advantage of robust public services is their reach into peripheral regions and marginalised communities. This is true of public transport, as it is with public hospitals. Private buses will always avoid isolated rural routes as their margins only increase on the busy routes between cities and towns. And private hospitals and clinics flock to the cities to extract from desperate patients, including by unscrupulous doctors who divert patients in public hospitals to be served in the private health facilities they moonlight. Similarly, it is affluent cities and towns that are the attraction for private educational institutions.

Public institutions, including universities, can only ensure their public role if they are adequately funded. Over the last decade and a half, with falling allocations for education, our state universities have been pushed into initiating fee levying courses, both at the post-graduate level and also for undergraduate international students. These programmes are seen as avenues to decrease the dependence of universities on budgetary support. However, the reality is that it is only universities in Colombo that can draw in students capable of paying such high fees. Furthermore, such fee levying courses end up pushing academics into overwork including by offering additional income.

Therefore, allocations for underfunded regional universities need to be steadily increased. Housing facilities and other services for academics working in rural districts would ensure their continued presence and greater engagement with the local communities. Increased time away from teaching and research funding earmarked for community engagement will provide clear direction for academics. Indeed, such funding with a clear vision and role for regional universities can provide considerable social returns. In a time when repeated crises are affecting our society, agricultural production to bolster our food system as well as rural income streams and employment are major issues. Here, regional universities have an important role today in developing social and economic alternatives.

Reimagining development

In recent months, there have been interesting initiatives in the Northern Province, where the Universities of Jaffna and Vavuniya have been engaging state institutions on issues of development. In an initiative to bring different actors together, high level meetings have been convened between the staff of the Agriculture Faculty and officials of the Provincial Agriculture Ministry to figure out solutions for long pending agricultural problems. Similar meetings have also been organised between provincial authorities and the Faculties of Technology and Engineering in Kilinochchi. These initiatives have led to academics engaging communities and co-operatives on their development needs, particularly in formulating new development initiatives and activating idle projects and assets in the region. Such engagement provides opportunities for academics to share their knowledge and skills while learn from communities about challenges that lead to new problems for research.

One of the most rewarding engagements I have been part of is an internship programme for the Technology Faculty of the University of Jaffna, where four batches of final year students, from food technology, green farming and automobile specialities, have been placed for six months within the co-operative movement through the Northern Co-operative Development Bank. This initiative has created a strong relationship between the Technology Faculty and the co-operative movement, with a number of former students now working fulltime in co-operative ventures. They are at the centre of developing solutions for rural co-operatives, including activating idle factories and ensuring quality and standards for their products.

I refer to these concrete initiatives because universities’ role in research and development in Sri Lanka, as in most other countries, are often narrowly conceived to be engagement with private businesses. However, for rural regions, the challenge, even with technological development, is the generation of appropriate technologies that can serve communities.

In Sri Lanka, we have for long emulated the major Western universities and in the process lost sight of the needs of our own youth and communities. Rethinking the development of our universities may have to begin with an understanding of the real challenges and context of our people. Our universities and their academics, if provided with a progressive vision and adequate resources and time to engage their communities, have the potential to address the many economic and social challenges that the next decade of global turmoil is bound to create.

Ahilan Kadirgamar is a political economist and Senior Lecturer, University of Jaffna.

(Kuppi is a politics and pedagogy happening on the margins of the lecture hall that parodies, subverts, and simultaneously reaffirms social hierarchies)

by Ahilan Kadirgamar

Features

‘Disco Lady’ hitmaker now doing it for Climate Change

Published

22 hours ago

2026/04/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

The name Alston Koch is generally associated with the hit song ‘Disco Lady.’ Yes, he has had several other top-notch songs to his credit but how many music lovers are aware that Alston is one of the few Asian-born entertainers using music for climate advocacy, since 2008.

He is back in the ‘climate change’ scene, with SUNx Malta, to celebrate Earth Day 2026, with the release of ‘A Symphony for Change’ – a vibrant Dodo4Kids video by Alston.

The inspiring musical video highlights ocean conservation and empowers children as future climate champions, honouring Maurice Strong’s legacy through education, creativity, and global collaboration for a sustainable planet.

The four-minute animated musical, composed and performed by platinum award-winning artiste Alston Koch, brings to life a resurrected Dodo, guiding children on a mission to clean up marine environments.

With a catchy melody and an uplifting message, the video blends entertainment with education—making climate awareness accessible and engaging for the next generation.

SUNx Malta is a Climate Friendly Travel system, focused on transforming the global tourism sector that is low-carbon, SDG-linked, and nature-positive.

Professor Geoffrey Lipman, President of SUNx Malta, described the project as a joyful collaboration with purpose:

“It’s always a pleasure to produce music with Alston for the good of our planet. And this time, to incorporate our Dodo4Kids in the video urging the next generation of young climate champions to help save our seas.”

For Alston, now based in Australia, the collaboration continues a long-standing journey of climate-focused creativity:

Says Alston: “I have been working on climate songs since the first release, in 2009, of the video ‘Act Now.’ Since then, I’ve performed at major global events—from Bali to Glasgow. I wrote this song because the climate horizon is darkening, and our kids and grandkids are our best hope for a brighter future.”

Alston’s very first climate song is ‘Can We Take This Climate Change,’ released in 2008.

It was written by Alston for the World Trade Organisation presentation, in London, and presented at ‘Live the Deal Climate Change’ conference in Copenhagen.

The Sri Lankan-born singer was goodwill ambassador for the campaign, and the then UK Minister Barbara Follett called it a “gift in song to the world suffering due to climate change.”

Alston said he wrote it after noticing butterflies, birds, and fruit trees disappearing from his childhood days.

In 2017, his creation ‘Make a Change’ was released in connection with World Tourism Day 2017.

Alston Koch’s work on climate advocacy is pretty inspiring, especially as climate change is now creating horrifying problems worldwide, and in Sri Lanka, too.

Alston also indicated to us that he has plans to visit Sri Lanka, sometime this year, and, maybe, even plan out a date for an Alston Koch special … a concert, no doubt.

Can’t wait for it!