China helping Sri Lanka against Tigers.
A new strategic partnership in the making ???????????????
On the southern coast of Sri Lanka, ten miles from one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, a vast construction site is engulfing the once sleepy fishing town of Hambantota.
This poor community of 21,000 people is about as far as one can get on the island from the fighting between the army and the Tamil Tiger rebels on the northeastern coast. The sudden spurt of construction helps, however, to explain why the army is poised to defeat the Tigers and why Western governments are so powerless to negotiate a ceasefire to help civilians trapped on the front line.
This is where China is building a $1 billion port that it plans to use as a refuelling and docking station for its navy, as it patrols the Indian Ocean and protects China’s supplies of Saudi oil. Ever since Sri Lanka agreed to the plan, in March 2007, China has given it all the aid, arms and diplomatic support it needs to defeat the Tigers, without worrying about the West.
Even India, Sri Lanka’s long-time ally and the traditionally dominant power in South Asia, has found itself sidelined in the past two years — to its obvious irritation. “China is fishing in troubled waters,” Palaniappan Chidambaram, India’s Home Minister, warned last week.
The Chinese say that Hambantota is a purely commercial venture, but many US and Indian military planners regard it as part of a “string of pearls” strategy under which China is also building or upgrading ports at Gwadar in Pakistan, Chittagong in Bangladesh and Sittwe in Burma.
The strategy was outlined in a paper by Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher J. Pehrson, of the Pentagon’s Air Staff, in 2006, and again in a report by the US Joint Forces Command in November. “For China, Hambantota is a commercial venture, but it’s also an asset for future use in a very strategic location,” Major-General (Retd) Dipankar Banerjee of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in Delhi said.
The British Navy used the Sri Lankan port of Trincomalee as its main regional base until 1957 and still shares a naval base with the US on the nearby island of Diego Garcia. China has no immediate plans for a fully fledged naval base but wants a similar foothold in the Indian Ocean to protect its oil supplies from piracy or blockade by a foreign power, analysts say.
Times of London
china will not worrying about western countries,they have their own and really a powerful country in asia,thats why they call them "THE SLEEPING DRAGON OF ASIA".
Western governments are so powerless to negotiate a ceasefire to help civilians trapped on the front line.
western goverment is now interefering for the war of sri lankan goverment to those rebel in their country?yeah!for the civilian they can manage to evecuate that with their arm forces,im not againts to those westerner,but they are piece of sh** to interefere for this situation,for how many decade that sri lankan goverment want to rid those bloody rebel,then now almost they got the victory to their country from rebels,westerner interefering at the end??this is not a kind of movie that westerner helping another country.let the sri lankan goverment do their own.no offense western people or whatever.back off!
If its mutaualy beneficial to both nations, then does it really matter ?
I am sure it would not make any headline if it's British, American or its allies who came in to build the port. This is a what I call a poison-pen. A hit below the belt. Just remember: a truth told in bad intent beats all the lies you can invent!
IF TAMILS WANT TO HAVE A ELAM OR A HOME LAND FOR THEIR OWN, THE BEST PLACE IS TAMIL NADU WHERE THEIR ORIGINS ARE ROOTED OR THERE IS NORWAY , CANADA, UK ...WHO HAS ALREADY OCCUPIED A VAST NUMBER OF THEM...
SOON YOU WILL SEE A GURILLA WAR FOR A SEPERATE HOME LAND IN ONE OF THESE COUNTRY.
You are concrened about Sri Lankan port , Terrorism , Chinese expansion or Business? I did not get the point you are raising?
The poor Island and it's living beings including the tamils has suffered enough because of LTTE. No one need any more to devide this country but are happy to live and prosper in it.
We have one world and I imagine living in it peacefully , fairly treated and with no hunger or sickness .
So please if you can reach , try to promote peace, humanity and give a helping hand to the suffering people and all living beings... that...makes a point.
I am not a sinhalase or a tamil ... but a human being ...with a good soul