Opinion
Extricating Ourselves from China’s Grip – A further Response
I refer to Mr G. A.D Sirimal’s response, to my earlier comments on subject of China’s Grip. While thanking Mr Sirimal (Mr S) for his response I also wish to say that I am sorry for failing to read his earlier letter where he named the African Research Assistant. Let us leave that failing on my part aside.
I am somewhat puzzled by Mr S’s and this African Research Assistant’s claim that China tried to ‘gain a foothold in the affairs of a country’. I assume that what is meant here is not gaining a foothold in a country physically, but making use of the opportunity to influence a country’s policies and activities in some way. If that is accepted, can we hear of some specific instances of attempts by this country to to do that? To my knowledge, there have been no such instances reported in Sri Lanka. Please correct me if I am wrong.
However, I can think of numerous instances of other foreign countries, specially, those in the Western Hemisphere, which have been trying to interfere in our affairs all the time. Some countries have tried and even succeeded in amending our Constitution without our consent (What happened to the Constitutional provision of the 2/3 majority and a Referendum?). Here, I am having in mind the 13th Amendment and the merger of two provinces. Some other countries are pressurising us even right now, to abolish an important law enacted by our Parliament intended to prevent terrorist activities: the PTA. What about the attempt to bring in foreign judges to try some of our own soldiers who fought to defend our country against a vicious terrorist movement? The European Union once withdrew the GSP Plus facility and is now maintaining a constant threat of withdrawing it if we do not fall in line with their thinking on political issues quite unrelated to trade. Our largest market for the Garment Products – the US is also keeping its options open on the GSP Plus in order to influence our policies. This country once reprimanded us for failing to stop oil purchases from Iran when they imposed trade sanctions on that country. There is a long list of such instances of ‘gaining footholds’ which need not be mentioned for the present. I would like to ask Mr S again whether there is any evidence of China trying to influence policies and activities of other countries like that. Assuming for the time being what the African Research Assistant and Mr S believe is right, one comment seems appropriate. When China wanted to get a foothold in a country, it at least offered a loan to finance a project considered important by the same country. However, the countries mentioned above offered nothing in return. Furthermore, it is significant that the myth about China’s secret motives was invented by these same countries following the mischievous Trump tradition.
Now, the question that arises is Which grip should we try to extricate ourselves from? the Geneva (European-American) Grip or the Imagined China’s Grip ?
Let me add a comment about what Mr S chooses to call ‘Vanity Projects’ and those capital projects that make the country poorer (according to his thinking). As I pointed out in my earlier letter this is a highly debatable issue. If we leave out what may be called purely ‘Vanity Projects’, and those in the government sector proper, what remains are those intended to earn incomes by selling services to the public. These are the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs). Many of these may be important to the country in a national sense, but may not attract private investment because the initial capital requirements are large and the returns on investment are earned only in the long run.
It is true that many SOEs have failed to earn profits and have become burdens on the Government Budget. But that does not mean that these are total failures and the country would be better off if they are closed down. As investment projects, there was nothing wrong with these, and at that stage were even considered essential to bring about economic development. However, these eventually became failures, the reasons being invariably, poor management and corruption. This is the common story of many of our failed SOEs as confirmed by the findings of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE). If that is the case, there is no justification in accusing the foreign lender for choosing non-viable investment projects. As I pointed out earlier, the problem is something of our own making.
There are several other possible comments on certain misconceptions regarding projects that ‘make the country poorer’, but I prefer to skip them for the sake of brevity.
S.A. Karunaratne