China’s ‘soft-power blitzkrieg’ on Sri Lanka’s Tamils rings alarm bells in India

Beijing’s overtures, conveyed recently by a bare-chested envoy, have stoked India’s fears that part of its ‘strategic backyard’ could become a Chinese military outpost

Sri Lanka, which has a history of playing off the two rivals, is keen to curry favour with both as it struggles to avoid defaulting on its multibillion-dollar debt pile

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A photo shared on Twitter by the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka shows Ambassador Qi Zhenhong presenting donations during his visit to Jaffna and Mannar.

Published: 1:00pm, 5 Feb 2022

There’s a new twist in the tug of war between China and India over Sri Lanka, one of a string of countries where the geopolitical rivalry between the Asian giants is playing out.

China has staged an unprecedented charm offensive to court ethnic Tamils in their Jaffna Peninsula heartland where India has been the traditional power. In December, China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, Qi Zhenhong, spent three days visiting the Tamil-dominated Jaffna region, conducting what Indian political analyst Shrey Khanna called a “soft-power blitzkrieg”. A Sri Lankan risk analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “This region has always been off-limits to the Chinese so the visit was done with the [Sri Lankan] government’s blessing.”

To understand why this Chinese initiative to extend its influence beyond the Sinhalese-speaking majority, concentrated in the south of the island, rings security alarm bells in New Delhi, look to India’s southern Tamil Nadu state, just 40km away at the nearest point between the two countries. The state is home to nearly 70 million Tamils who have strong linguistic, religious and cultural ties with the Jaffna area where many of Sri Lanka’s estimated four million Tamils live. New Delhi’s long-standing worry is that Sri Lanka, which India has traditionally viewed as part of its “strategic backyard”, could become a Chinese military outpost.

For his visit, Qi donned a gold-bordered white dhoti and went bare-chested in accordance with Tamil Hindu rites to make offerings at a famed local temple. He also distributed Covid-19 relief and fishing gear to Tamil fishermen who have complained Indian fishermen are poaching in their waters.

Qi, escorted by Sri Lanka’s military, sailed as well to Adam’s Bridge, or the Ram Setu as Indians call it. It’s a chain of limestone shoals that until the 15th century is believed to have served as a land bridge between the countries. Many Hindus believe it was built by the Hindu god Lord Ram. Staring out to sea, Qi at one point asked those assembled if he was facing India (he was).

Qi’s visit to Sri Lanka’s nearest Indian border point was “aimed at provoking New Delhi, in strategic and political terms, given the Indian sensitivities to the ‘ethnic [Tamil] issue’,” said N. Sathiya Moorthy, a distinguished fellow at India’s Observer Research Foundation, a think tank.