China-Sri Lanka Friendly Relationship: Historical Tradition, Realistic Dynamics

and Bright Future by Dr Wang Weihua

China and Sri Lanka are friendly and close neighbors in tradition. China-Sri Lanka
friendly relationship has a long historical tradition, the strong realistic dynamics and a
bright future.
Historical Development of China-Sri Lanka Friendly Relationship
China-Sri Lanka friendly relationship before the independence of Sri Lanka. A
long-term religious and cultural exchanges and commercial and trade exchanges laid
the historical foundation for the establishment and development of a long-term friendly
relations between China and Sri Lanka. Chinas famous monk Faxian went to Sri Lanka
to learn Buddhism in 5th century and a navigator of Chinese Ming Dynasty, Zheng He
successively arrived in Sri Lanka for three times in 15th century, these are the two
landmark events in the history of exchanges between the two countries.
China-Sri Lanka friendly relationship after the independence of Sri Lanka. With
the guidance of the five principles of peaceful coexistence, the independent Sri Lanka
and the newborn Peoples Republic of China worked together to promote sustainable
development of the friendly relationship between the two countries, which set up a
good example for the big and small countries to deal with their relationship on the basis
of equality, friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation. In January 1950, Sri Lanka
acknowledged the new China. In 1952, the two sides opened a new chapter in bilateral
economic and trade relationship with the signing of Sino-Lanka Rubber-Rice Pact. In
1957, the two sides formally established the diplomatic relationship.
China-Sri Lanka friendly relationship in the 21st century. Since entering the new
century, the international system and the pattern of the world are undergoing profound
changes, and China-Sri Lanka bilateral friendly relationship has shown increasingly
prominent regional and global significance. In April 2005, when then Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao was paying a visit to Sri Lanka, the two countries announced to establish
China-Sri Lanka All-round Cooperation Partnership of Sincere Mutual Support and
Ever-lasting Friendship. In May 2013, during Sri Lankas President Rajapaksas visit to
China, both sides decided to upgrade China-Sri Lanka relationship to the Strategic
Cooperative Partnership of Sincere Mutual Support and Ever-lasting Friendship.
Realistic Dynamics of China-Sri Lanka Strategic Cooperative Partnership
The establishment and development of China-Sri Lanka Strategic Cooperative
Partnership not only originated in the political tradition of ever-lasting friendship
between the two countries, but also is closely related with the pulse of the times.
China-Sri Lanka Strategic Cooperative Partnership is provided the opportunity for
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in-depth development by the evolution of international configuration and regional

situation as well as the sufficient realistic dynamics for all-round development by their
own national strategies and development needs.
Currently, Indian Oceans strategic position is rising in the world politics and
global trade. Indian Ocean region has become a hot area of current international politics,
especially facing the increasingly serious non-traditional security challenges, such as
piracy, terrorism, organized crime and so on. Indian Ocean is becoming more and more
important to the world economy and global trade because that it is becoming the
important energy and trade channel to connect the Asia-Pacific region which is the
center of world economic growth and the Gulf and Africa region which is the energy
and resource center. Indian Ocean is one of the regions with the most intensive sea trade
routes in the world, the petroleum route and trade channel in Indian Ocean are many
countries strategic lifelines including China.
With the rise of Indian Oceans strategic importance, the United States of America,
which has been the traditional dominating hegemony both globally and regionally since
the end of cold war, is gradually shrinking its strategic presence and investment in this
region. Because of the shale gas exploitation, the strategic importance of the Middle
East to the United States is declining. At the same time, along with the gradual
implementation of the rebalancing strategy in Asia-Pacific region, Americas naval
forces is in contraction world widely except in Asia-Pacific, the status of India Ocean in
Americas global strategy may decline. Given this context, countries in this region
would be very naturally concerned about the changes of the regional and global
situation.
As an Indian Ocean country with very unique geopolitical location, Sri Lanka has
a more and more important strategic status with the rise of Indian Oceans importance.
With the improvement of port and other infrastructure, Sri Lankas strategic importance
concerning sea-lane security and trade relations in Indian will rise further.
Enormous energy and resource requirements are raised to support Chinas rapid
economic development with a high speed over the past more than thirty years. The
navigation safety in Indian Ocean is becoming Chinas core national concern due to
Indian Ocean has become the most important channel for China to import oil and
resources from the Gulf and Africa. Therefore, China will definitely pay more attention
to Indian Ocean. However, Chinas military presence in Indian Ocean is almost zero
besides the anti-piracy activity near to Somali. China does need to work together with
the India Ocean countries and relevant stakeholders to ensure the peace and stability in
the most busy water area in the world.
At bilateral level, there are a lot of dynamics to promote the comprehensive and
in-depth development of bilateral relationship between China and Sri Lanka.
1. On the basis of strong mutual political trust between the two countries, China
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and Sri Lanka have the similar positions on many international issues and could benefit
from the cooperation with each other to maintain their core national interests.
2. The two countries take economic development as a priority of their national
strategy.
3. China-Sri Lanka bilateral economic and trade cooperation has great potential
especially after the upcoming signing of the Free Trade Area Agreement.
4. The more favorable factor to the bilateral relationship is that China put forward
the idea to create the 21 Century Maritime Silk Road. This is a friendly way of the
economic and trade cooperation and cultural exchanges in the new era. There is no
doubt, due to the unique geographical location, that Sri Lanka is facing an important
opportunity and is able to play an important role within this framework. The
comprehensive cooperation between China and Sri Lanka on the construction of the
21st Century Maritime Silk Road will not only promote the bilateral economic and
trade cooperation, but also make the bilateral cooperation with more regional and
international significance.
Outlook of China-Sri Lanka Strategic Cooperative Partnership
Based on the analysis of the history and reality, people have reasons to be full of
expectation about the future development of China-Sri Lanka Strategic Cooperative
Partnership. Although Sri Lanka does not geographically share border with China, but
China regards its relationship with Sri Lanka as an important part of its good neighbor
policy. The two countries have the consensus to work together for a bright future of the
bilateral relationship, which will not only benefits the two peoples, but also the whole
region and the world at large.
First, China and Sri Lanka should further consolidate the basis of bilateral relations,
and actively promote the all-round cooperation and exchanges. Politically, the two
sides should continue to maintain close high-level exchanges. Economically, the two
sides should achieve the bilateral FTA agreement as soon as possible, enhance the scale
and level of economic and trade cooperation, change the imbalance of the trade
structure, and enlarge Chinas direct investment in Sri Lanka. At the same time, the two
sides should actively promote and expand people to people exchanges. Especially on
Chinese side, the government should encourage more Chinese tourists to go to Sri
Lanka for sightseeing. In addition, the two sides should steadily push forward the
pragmatic cooperation in the fields of defense and security, and also give their firm
supports to each other in the fight against terrorism and three forces.
Second, China and Sri Lanka should further strengthen the regional and
international significance of the bilateral relations through enriching the connotation of
the strategic cooperative partnership. 1. The two sides should strengthen cooperation in
regional multilateral organizations, such as SCO, SAARC and so on. 2. The two sides
should strengthen the comprehensive cooperation in marine field, such as ecological
protection, marine economy, marine observation and so on. 3. The two sides should
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strengthen coordination on multilateral issues, such as Climate Change, UN reform and

so on. 4. The two sides should plan the bilateral economic and trade cooperation under
the framework of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in order to constantly improve
the hub status and radiation effects of Sri Lanka to the economic and trade cooperation
in Indian Ocean.
Finally, China and Sri Lanka should further highlight the positive energy that China- Sri
Lanka Strategic Cooperative Partnership brings to the regional peace and stability as
well as the regional development. China-Sri Lanka Strategic Cooperative Partnership is
helpful to the peace and stability in the region, which is not targeted at any third country.
China has neither the so-called Pearl Chain Strategy nor the grand strategy to seek
Indian Ocean into Chinas sphere of influence. On the one hand, China does not have
such strength because China is still a regional power rather than a global power,
although apparently Chinas global interests are in rapid growth. On the other hand, the
more important reason is China has no intention of such a strategy. The road of peaceful
development is Chinas national strategy and will not be shaken easily since we believe
that there is no way for China to follow the old way which the western powers have
taken when they were rising in the last 400 hundreds years. What China is pursuing in
Indian Ocean is the common security, comprehensive security, cooperative security and
sustainable security, which is also one of the guiding principles of the development of
China-Sri Lanka Strategic Cooperative Partnership. At the same time, China-Sri Lanka
Strategic Cooperative Partnership will strongly promote Chinas engagement into the
regional integration in South Asia, which will be helpful to the development of the
whole region.
In conclusion, China and Sri Lanka are good friends and good partners with mutual
trust. China-Sri Lanka Strategic Cooperative Partnership has its own historical
foundation and realistic dynamics. With deepening the bilateral pragmatic cooperation
and strengthening the regional coordination, the development of China-Sri Lanka
Strategic Cooperative Partnership will benefit the two countries as well as the whole
region and world at large.