By John Elliott
Should the Commonwealth be concerned about its member countries increasingly coming under the influence of China? The question is not new. Back in 2013, the Round Table carried an article that said “China is very much the Elephant in the Commonwealth room”. But it is pertinent just before next month‘s biennial Commonwealth heads of government meeting because of the risk that China’s persistent inroads into the nations surrounding India may be increased following recent regime changes.
If that happens, it will pose questions that have arisen across the Commonwealth about short-term advantages in terms of investment and economic activity against disadvantages for financial indebtedness and social and political problems.
Last weekend there was an election in Sri Lanka where Leftist Anura Kumara Dissanayake, leader of the once-revolutionary Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) became the president, defeating established parties and dynasties. To build his party’s power, he has called a parliamentary election for 14 November.
That follows the ousting in Bangladesh last month of Sheikh Hasina who had been an increasingly controversial prime minister at the head of the Awami League since 2009. She had accepted investments from China along with other links, but her basic allegiance was to India, wooed with economic and investment deals by prime minister Narendra Modi. The government that eventually emerges to replace the current interim military-backed administration headed by 84-year-old Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus as chief adviser will not have that basic pro-India relationship, leaving the way open for China to expand its role.
While Sri Lanka has swung its allegiance between India and China in recent years and is likely to continue to do so, a pro-China government was elected in the Maldives in April. Pakistan has been strongly influenced by China for decades.
In all these countries, China’s advances have gradually replaced India that has traditionally regarded South Asia as its bailiwick but has failed to protect its turf.
Ironically, India is at the same time being increasingly recognized as a global power. Just as Dissanayake was claiming victory in a second-stage run-off of Sri Lanka’s presidential election on September 22, Modi was riding high in the US, meeting President Biden and other world leaders.
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Dissanayake’s JVP (People’s Liberation Front) was on the fringe of Sri Lanka’s politics for decades, adopting anti-American and anti-India lines at various times. In the 1970s, it led protests against the US over the Vietnam war and operated underground after being banned then and in the 1980s.
Since the early 2000s (when Dissanayake was briefly a government minister), it has been involved in mainstream politics and is now part of the National People’s Power (NPP) coalition. Its primary policies are anti-corruption and tax cuts and at times in the past it has criticised Sri Lanka’s debt crisis caused by Chinese investment.
At his swearing in, Dissanayake said Sri Lanka did not have any geopolitical concerns and he was committed to whatever was in the island’s best interests. “We need international help – so whatever geopolitical fractures exist around the globe, we will not be afraid to engage all in the best interest of Sri Lanka. We will work with the world”.
Dissanayake succeeds Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Party (UNP), who became the president in 2022 after an economic crisis and mass protests led to the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, part of a powerful, controversial and corrupt dynasty.
There has been considerable speculation in India about whether America’s concerns about China’s role in Bangladesh led to it being involved in the ousting of Sheikh Hasina. This surfaced internationally last month but did not have much traction, though the possibility has been widely rumoured in India.
On September 22, it was set out in the Indian Express by Coomi Kapoor, a well-connected veteran columnist. She wrote that India was “realistic enough to trace the fingerprints of the US”. Yunus was “a close friend of the Democratic party and of the Clinton Foundation”.
Referring to Chinese defence and infrastructure projects (and also to Russian involvement), she wrote: “The US was unhappy with Bangladesh for permitting the Chinese to build Asia’s largest submarine base at Cox’s Bazar and construct the Padma bridge. Russia’s funding of a nuclear power plant at Rooppur was another black mark against Bangladesh, which is near Myanmar, a military dictatorship with extremely close ties to China.” (The submarine base was a reference to a naval base China has been building to house two submarines that Dhaka bought from Beijing in 2013, and maybe service other Chinese subs).
Kapoor added that Hasina had once claimed that US antagonism toward her regime was linked to its alleged (unsuccessful) efforts to gain a lease on her country’s St. Martin Island for use as a military base to monitor Chinese activity near the Strait of Malacca. This has been denied by the US.
More widely discussed have been Washington’s persistent criticisms of her autocratic regime, her rigged elections (the latest in January), the random imprisonments of opponents and critics, and the deaths of some 450 people during the student demonstrations that began in June and led to her downfall.
Many observers however did not believe that these criticisms would lead to the US wanting to change a basically secular pro-western regime and risk Bangladesh becoming ruled by fundamentalist Muslim opposition parties.
Nevertheless, the speed with which the demonstrations escalated fed the rumours. In quick succession, Hasina fled at a few hours’ notice to India, Bangladesh’s army chief took over, and student leaders called for 84-year-old Muhammad Yunus, a respected but controversial Bangladeshi Nobel Peace laureate, to lead the government. Yunus immediately flew to Dhaka from Paris, where he was watching the Olympics, and was installed as chief adviser to the government along with other advisers. It all seemed so rapid and seamless that it led to speculation in India about whether there was outside involvement.
No such suggestions are being made about the changes in Sri Lanka where India now needs to move adeptly to try to ensure that its substantial contributions to the vulnerable economy are valued by the new regime. India’s track record however is not encouraging, which means that China’s Commonwealth fresh incursions in the region are here to stay.
[The original version of this article can be found on the Riding the Elephant website. Views expressed do not reflect the position of the Round Table editorial board.]
John Elliott is a member of the Round Table editorial board.
