US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday took the US President Donald Trump administration’s anti-China campaign to two Indian Ocean island nations considered particularly at risk for what US officials allege is Chinese exploitation.
Pompeo is visiting Sri Lanka and the Maldives to press the two countries to be on guard against potential predatory lending and investment by China.
He was making the case less than a week before the US presidential election, in which US President Donald Trump is seeking to paint his rival former US vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, as weak on China and beholden to it.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Even before Pompeo arrived in Sri Lanka, China had fired back at the US message, accusing Washington of bullying smaller nations.
Pompeo, who is also to visit the Maldives and Indonesia, is to press each nation to push back against increasing Chinese assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region.
US officials have said development and infrastructure projects benefit China more than the presumed recipients — a refrain Pompeo repeated with Sri Lankan Minister of Foreign Affairs Dinesh Gunawardena.
Pompeo said the country could be “a beacon” for freedom and democracy in the region as long as it retained its “full sovereignty.”
“That is quite a contrast to what China seeks,” Pompeo said. “The Chinese Communist Party is a predator. The United States comes in a different way. We come as a friend and a partner.”
Gunawardena appeared unwilling to get involved in the spat with China and said Sri Lanka is willing to cooperate with all friendly countries.
“Sri Lanka is a neutral, non-aligned country committed to peace,” he said. “We hope to continue in our relations with the United States and with other parties.”
Earlier this month, Beijing announced that it would provide Sri Lanka with a US$90 million grant to help rural development, after Sri Lankan President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa sought help from a visiting Chinese delegation in disproving a perception that China-funded mega-projects are “debt traps.”
China considers Sri Lanka to be a critical link in its massive Belt and Road Initiative and has provided billions of US dollars in loans for Sri Lankan projects over the past decade.
Ahead of Pompeo’s arrival in Colombo, the Chinese embassy in Sri Lanka denounced his visit, accusing one of his top aides of making unacceptable threats against the country.
In those comments, US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Dean Thompson urged Sri Lanka “to make difficult, but necessary decisions to secure its economic independence for long-term prosperity.”
The Chinese embassy said the comments were a “blatant violation” of diplomatic protocols.
It also chided the US for organizing Pompeo’s 24-hour visit and imposing a major logistical burden on the country, which, like much of the rest of the world is in the midst of a spiraling surge in COVID-19 cases.
“Does this approach truly prove your respect to the host country? Is it helpful to local epidemic prevention and control? Is it in the interests of the Sri Lankan people?” the embassy said in a statement.
In his meeting with Rajapaska, Pompeo “stressed the importance of strengthening democratic governance, human rights protections, and of fundamental freedoms to ensure long-term stability and prosperity,” the US Department of State said in a statement.
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