In the following article, contributed to Friends of Socialist China, Shiran Illanperuma outlines positive steps in the relations between China and Sri Lanka since the recent elections, with new President Anura Kumar Dissanayake (AKD) expected to visit Beijing shortly.
Shiran sets these developments against a background of some key moments in China’s relations with Sri Lanka and specifically between the Communist Party of China and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the party presently led by AKD, and refutes the persistent myth of Chinese ‘debt trap diplomacy’.
Shiran Illanperuma is a journalist and political economist based in Sri Lanka. He is a researcher and editor at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and a contributor to Friends of Socialist China. He has an MSc in Economic Policy from SOAS University of London.
China has pledged to support the recently elected government in Sri Lanka led by president Anura Kumar Dissanayake (AKD), ahead of a proposed visit by him to China. In the past few months, it has stepped up its aid, welcomed the country’s representation at the BRICS summit in Kazan, and organised visits by delegations from the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee (IDCPC), and the All-China Women’s Federation (ACWF).
AKD was elected to office in September 2024 with 42.3% of the popular vote. Two months later, in November 2024, his party the National People’s Power (NPP) secured a supermajority in Parliament by winning 61.6% of the popular vote in the general election. NPP describes itself as a political movement comprising 21 parties and civil society organisations. However, its main constituent is the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front) which is organised as a cadre-based Marxist-Leninist party, and of which AKD is also the leader.
On December 18, AKD met with Vice Chairperson of the National Committee of the CPPCC Qin Boyong. During the meeting, Qin said that preparations were underway to welcome AKD on a visit to China. The two also discussed completing unfinished Chinese investments in Sri Lanka and jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative.
On December 17, Vice President of the ACWF, Zhang Dongmei, met with Sri Lankan Prime Minister and National Executive Committee member of the NPP, Dr. Harini Amarasuriya. According to a report by Sri Lankan government media, Zhang shared China’s experience in in improving women’s workforce participation and grassroots representation. The two also discussed shared issues regarding women’s health and education.
The ACWF is China’s first countrywide women’s organisation, which was established after the revolution in 1949 and initially chaired by communist revolutionary and veteran of the Long March Cai Chang. Dr. Amarasuriya is notably Sri Lanka’s second female Prime Minister after Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who in July 1960 became the world’s first woman Premier. A trailblazer of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), she also forged a strong friendship with first generation Chinese leaders Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, notably visiting China in 1962, welcoming Zhou Enlai to Sri Lanka in 1964, and being received by Chairman Mao in 1972.
On November 25, Vice Minister of the IDCPC Sun Haiyan led a delegation to meet with President Anura Kumar Dissanayake. According to a report by Sri Lankan government media, the delegation expressed China’s readiness to support Sri Lanka on developmental matters such as rural upliftment, technological transfers, and investment. The delegation also pledged to help train education officials. Sun Haiyan had previously met a delegation of the JVP led by AKD in Beijing in December 2023. During that meeting, held nearly a year ahead of elections, both sides had agreed to improve party-to-party exchanges. (The IDCPC delegation also met with a number of other political parties, including Samagi Jana Balawegaya, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya, and National Freedom Front.)
Since the presidential election in September, the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka appears to have stepped up aid and donations. For example, in October, it donated around USD 1.5 million worth of aid to help Sri Lanka deal with floods that affected over 150,000 people. Meanwhile the Embassy has also been active in delivering aid to the Northern and Eastern Provinces where Indian soft power has traditionally dominated. Such aid includes donations of housing units, fishing nets, rice, and cash grants. Most recently, on December 12, the Embassy donated 11.82 million meters of fabric to help Sri Lanka provide uniforms for 4.6 million students.
Debunking the debt-trap
Chinese diplomats in Sri Lanka have also struck a firmer tone on certain issues. In an interview with local media on November 29, Ambassador Qi Zhenhong pushed back against the debt-trap narrative. Qi emphasised that all investment projects conducted by China in Sri Lanka were at the request of the host government. He argued that any shortcomings in the revenue-generation capacity of such projects were due to lack of capacity on the Sri Lankan side.
“Some former parliamentarians call some of these projects as ‘White Elephant’ projects. But these allegations are baseless. China built these projects on Sri Lanka’s request and it was the poor operation of these projects from the Sri Lankan side that led to it being unutilised,” Qi said.
Sri Lanka was the original poster child for the myth of Chinese debt-trap diplomacy. This was mainly popularised through a misleading report by the New York Times which alleged that Sri Lanka was forced to ‘cough up’ sovereignty over a port in the southern district of Hambantota due to the inability to pay back debt incurred in construction. In reality, both local and foreign scholars have pointed out that the sale of shares in the port to a Chinese company was done so that the government could service debts owed to the West.
The Chinese Embassy, not for the first time, also called on Sri Lanka to “withstand foreign pressure”, without naming any particular country. Sri Lanka has increasingly faced pressure from the US and India to restrict the development of its friendship and cooperation with China. India in particular has applied pressure on Sri Lanka to refuse Chinese research vessels from docking at its ports on supposed security grounds. As a member of the US-led Quadrilateral Alliance, alongside Japan and Australia, India’s geopolitical contention with China has, to a degree, aligned with US interests, aiming to contain China in a New Cold War.
Shortly after Sri Lanka announced a pre-emptive default on all its external debt in 2022, the Chinese Embassy held a press conference where the Ambassador said, “China has done its best to help Sri Lanka not to default but sadly they went to the IMF and decided to default… Countries that colonised Sri Lanka have more obligations to help at this juncture.”
Indeed, Sri Lanka’s main debt burden at the time of default was not from low-interest Chinese development finance, but from high-interest debt to Western banks and financial institutions such as Blackrock.
Marxist, Leftist, or pro-China?
Various mainstream media outlets have described the new Sri Lankan President as “Marxist”, and his party as “leftist” or “left-leaning”. President and party have also been described as “pro-China”. However, these monikers might be better understood as attempts to label and corner the new government in advance of it attempting anything too radical.
In reality, AKD and the NPP have latterly been much more cautious in how they label and present themselves. For example, JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva has refuted the claim that the current government is “leftist”, explaining that it is rather a pluralist government that includes, “leftist, democratic, and progressive forces”.
Since coming to power the NPP has halted plans to privatise the state-owned electricity board and national carrier Sri Lankan Airlines, and has moved to reduce taxes on the middle class. However, it has also compromised by continuing an ongoing IMF program and an unfavourable foreign debt restructuring agreement negotiated by AKD’s right-wing predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe.
The JVP has had long-time party-to-party relations with the CPC. In 2021, it delivered a warm message of congratulations to the Communist Party of China (CPC) on the occasion of its centenary. However, there have also been some historical contradictions between the JVP and the CPC. The JVP was born out of the youth wing of the formerly pro-China Ceylon Communist Party in 1965. The JVP’s founder Rohana Wijeweera was initially a follower of that party’s leader Nagalingam Shanmugathasan, following his expulsion from Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba University.
In 1971, the JVP launched an insurrection against the United Front government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike, elected the previous year and comprising her Sri Lanka Freedom Party, the (pro-Moscow) Ceylon Communist Party, and the historically Trotskyist Lanka Sama Samaja Party. At the time, China’s foreign policy was shifting towards a united front of ‘third world’ countries while the new Sri Lankan government promoted non-alignment, called for the Indian Ocean to be transformed into a neutral ‘zone of peace’, supported the Arab people’s struggle against Zionism, recognised the German Democratic Republic, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam, while promoting extensive nationalisations and land reform at home. Against this background, Premier Zhou En Lai wrote a letter to Sirimavo Bandaranaike distancing China from the insurrection and reiterating support for her government.
In the past decades, the JVP has successfully entered mainstream parliamentary politics, participating in various coalitions and moderating its tone to appeal to larger sections of the population. However, its relationship with China has not always been entirely smooth. In 2021, for example, AKD accused the then government of turning the Port City Colombo, into which China had invested some USD 1.3 billion, into a ‘Chinese territory’.
New leaders of other regional states, Maldives and Nepal have dispensed with past practice and visited Beijing ahead of Delhi. Despite the JVP’s long-standing critical stance towards India, AKD has not followed this trend, choosing to visit Delhi first and assure Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of his government’s respect for Indian security interests. Time will tell how successful this balancing act will be.
All that said, recent developments clearly indicate that the JVP and CPC maintain fairly warm relations. Ultimately, any government in Colombo that wishes to deliver economic development and productive investment for its people, will be compelled to maintain and develop friendly and cooperative relations with Beijing.
