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ABSTRACT
Analysis of Sri Lanka’s foreign policy over three decades (1977–2015) reveals a pattern of shifts from balancing to bandwagoning, and then back again to balancing. The more salient foreign policy issues during each administration fall broadly within the economic or security spheres. What are the key drivers of small state foreign policy – do systemic factors preside in general, and domestic factors prove inconsequential? Or are domestic factors able to play a decisive role under certain circumstances, within broader structural parameters? Three primary arguments are made in this regard. First, an interplay of system- and domestic-level factors best explains this pattern of foreign policy change. Second, in the domain of foreign economic policymaking, domestic imperatives and actors appear to play a decisive role, although within the broader structural preconditions. Third, systemic factors maintain predominance over domestic-level factors in shaping foreign security policy.
Acknowledgements
The author extends her appreciation to colleagues and the interviewees in this study for their insights and time – namely Dr Rajesh Basrur, Dr Anit Mukherjee, Dr Dayan Jayatilleka, Dr Rajiva Wijesinha, Dr Rohan Gunaratna, Ms Nilanthi Samaranayake, Mr Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, Dr Jayadeva Uyangoda, Mr Chaminda Hettiarachchi, Mr Ameen Izzadeen, Dr Sirimal Abeyratne, and sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Sri Lanka), the University of Colombo, the Kotelawala Defence University, and the Sri Lankan military. Any errors, of course, are all mine.
Disclosure statement
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the views of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanayang Technological University.
Notes on contributor
Rajni Nayanthara Gamage is a Senior Analyst in the Maritime Security Programme, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Her research focus is on maritime security affairs in the Indo-Pacific and the foreign policies of Indian Ocean small states. She can be reached at [email protected].
Notes
1. India’s total land area is 46 times of its neighboring island; has a population of 1.32 billion against Sri Lanka’s 22.27 million; India’s GDP (Purchasing Power Parity) is $4.99 trillion in comparison to Sri Lanka’s $134.5 billion; and has a defense budget of $40 billion (versus Sri Lanka’s $1.5 billion) and a military 8.5 times that of Sri Lanka.
2. The economic liberalization program had significant domestic drivers given the fairly serious domestic economic crisis in 1975–1976.
3. Jayewardene could not turn to India for either of these issues due to India’s poor economic performance as a result of its socialist, autarkic economic policies at the time; strained personal relations between Jayewardene and Mrs Gandhi; belief that Western armaments and technology were superior; and anxiety that Tamil Nadu pressures would make Indian assistance politically impossible. Wijesinha (Citation2015) and Jayatilleka (Citation2015), however, make the clarification that this second objective was a consequence of the first, i.e. securing Western financial assistance to back the national economic liberalization program and the resulting proxy war waged by India via the Tamil militants.
4. Sridharan (Citation2016) argues that it in addition to security concerns, domestic concerns at the center about alienation in Tamil Nadu and Congress revival plans in Tamil Nadu contributed to India’s motivations for the 1987 intervention. Uyangoda (Citation2015) states that the 1987 Indian intervention in Sri Lanka defined the tenor of bilateral relations thereafter, as the memory of the intervention is evoked by the latter as a constant reminder of India’s aggressive hegemonic potential, and of the need to factor in Indian interests as well.
5. Kumaratunga had her own special relationship outside that of her mother, i.e. her husband Vijaya Kumaratunga who founded the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party (SLMP) which had close links with India.
6. Such anti-Indian sentiment was present in Nepal in response to the stringent economic sanctions imposed by India in the late 1980s. Similarly, the left wing of Bangladesh politics claimed that the country had been reduced to a ‘mere satellite, “another Himalayan kingdom”’ of India, while the political right charged that ‘Bangladesh had escaped from the Punjabi embrace of West Pakistan only to fall under the Hindu juggernaut.’ In the Maldives, India’s support for the former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed caused the successor government to regard India with suspicion.
7. Due to the end of bloc power politics, India was less sensitive of its neighboring states engaging with extra-regional powers, alongside its ties with the U.S. rapidly improving in the post-1991 period, especially since the mid-1990s due to converging economic and strategic interests.
8. In the post-Cold War context, India’s chief security concern shifted to the destabilizing presence of the LTTE in the region particularly in terms of the negative security externalities of maritime security and refugee influx in south India. This is especially due to the high economic stakes India has on the SLOC in the IOR, given its 1991 trade-oriented economic reforms and aspirations to be a great power, with nearly 89% of its oil imports and over 70% of its maritime trade arriving via the Colombo Port.
9. Sridharan (Citation2016) discusses the split in Tamil Nadu public opinion in the 1990s following the shock of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. Following the banning of the LTTE by the center in 1992, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) led by Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu swept to power (in coalition with the Congress Party) and cracked down hard on the LTTE, carrying the public opinion with her.
10. Such a policy is in line with the basic tenets of functionalism which posits that cooperation should first be pursued in less-controversial areas of economic and social cooperation, and that through actor socialization, communication, and interaction, this will lead to building of trust and positive spillovers in the more salient areas of politics and security.
11. India’s economic growth rates of 3.82% in 1984 and 1.06% in 1991 rose to an annual rate of 7.57% in 1995.
12. Since this, India signed a Preferential Trade Agreement with Afghanistan in 2003, a Trade Agreement with Bangladesh in 2006, and a Treaty of Trade with Nepal in 2009.
13. For instance, Dixit (1992) states that during a discussion between Premadasa and foreign VIPs, Premadasa openly condemned India’s dominant, unilateral role in Sri Lanka’s domestic crisis; and Jayewardene (1992) stated: ‘The fear of Indian dominance is a major characteristic of the security perception of the South Asian countries.’
14. It is important to note that the Indian central government had strong incentives to form a strategic partnership with Sri Lanka – reflected in the joint statement released by Wickremasinghe and then-Indian PM Vajpayee in 2003, indicating mutual interest in working towards a DCA and also a Memorandum of Understanding on joint rehabilitation of the Palaly Airforce Base. However, progress on these fronts were stalled primarily due to domestic opposition from Tamil Nadu.
15. The Hambantota Port has been acknowledged as being largely an initiative by Wickremasinghe, partly accounted for by the fact that although Wickremasinghe did not share the same political rapport that Kumaratunga had with India (and was a classic UNP product that favored pro-Western, free market policies), he recognized the immense economic dividends through cooperating with India and the political costs of alienating India. It was during his term that the Indo-Lanka CEPA negotiations began; Wickremasinghe also proposed a land bridge between the two countries – although none of these initiatives were completed during his Premiership.
16. India realized only later that it had miscalculated and started moving quickly on the Kankesanthurai Port.
17. In December 2016, a Framework Agreement was signed by the GOSL towards the leasing of 80% of the Hambantoota Port to China Merchants Ports Holding Company in a debt-for-equity swap. China Merchants Ports Holdings Company expects to revive the Port, investing around U.S.$1.12 billion in this Public Private Partnership. The Framework Agreement also included the offer of a 99-year lease over 15,000 acres of land to build an economic hinterland for the Port. However, amidst strong public protests over the deal, the Sri Lankan cabinet has decided to re-negotiate the deal – see Balachandran (Citation2017).
18. In addition, although the GOSL reached out to potential U.S. investors, there was no interest reciprocated given the continued viability of the Colombo Port and the ongoing civil war being perceived as a potential financial risk.
19. Both Kumaratunga and Wickremasinghe were aware of the need to engage with India economically, given the high costs of war; instability that results from poor economic conditions; and consequently, regime survival. Due to the war, Western and Japanese economic interests in Sri Lanka had receded, and the Chinese economy had not yet started to venture into offshore engagements on the scale that it did in the post-2000 context.
20. Both Kumaratunga and the New Delhi government feared that devolving too much power to the LTTE would only feed its secessionist ambitions, thereby failing to provide a lasting solution to the ethnic Tamil issue which honoured Sri Lanka’s sovereignty. The Indian central government never favored the idea of a Tamil Eelam state as it feared this would lead to regional instability and encourage similar sentiments in its state of Tamil Nadu.
21. This includes a 2007 U.S. arms embargo to Sri Lanka. Gokhale makes the argument that although domestic compulsions forced India to adopt a superficial, hands-off policy, India quietly gifted five Mi-17 helicopters to the Sri Lankan Air Force. He does acknowledge, however, that India ‘could not go beyond such meagre and clandestine transfer of military hardware.’ Then-Defence Secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, too alludes to the close bilateral relations during Eelam War IV through the ‘Troika’ mechanism (comprising three key officials from the Sri Lankan and Indian sides).
22. In 2008, Sri Lanka received $75 million worth of Chinese arms shipments against a mere $10 million in 2006. In contrast, SIPRI data for the U.S. and India indicated empty data cells or declining arms exports to Sri Lanka.
23. This included the $1.4 billion Chinese-financed Colombo Port City; an agreement to create the $28 million Mirigama EEZ; and assistance by way of technical expertise and concessional loans for many high-scale infrastructure projects such as the Norochcholai Power Plant in Puttalam, Hambantota Port, Colombo Port terminal expansion, expressways, railway lines, etc.
24. China also fitted Sri Lanka’s requirement for a reliable ally so as to reduce its dependence on the West (and India) as the 2002 peace talks indicated partiality by the West towards the ‘pro-LTTE’ Tamil diaspora and even the LTTE.
25. This was in contrast to the bureaucratic bottlenecks and limited funding on the part of India which restrained its ability to provide similar levels of assistance to Sri Lanka. China also did not impose the kind of preconditions required by Western entities, such as mandatory economic reforms for economic assistance and loans by the International Monetary Fund.
26. Approximately 84% of China’s imported energy resources transit the IOR.
27. Sridharan (Citation2016), however, argues that another reason for India’s stance (besides domestic Tamil Nadu pressures) was the ‘increasingly blatant reneging on commitments [especially of power devolution] made to India at the highest level by the Rajapaksa regime.’
28. Rajapaksa was led to a false sense of security of Chinese patronage by his close advisors who did not have a good grasp of geopolitical realities and thereby failed to realize the limits of Chinese support and the necessity of Indian goodwill. Thus, while Rajapaksa had managed to balance well relations with India and China during the war, post-war military triumphalism and the accompanying rise of neo-conservatism within the ruling coalition led to the deterioration of the diplomatic rapport between Sri Lanka and India.
29. Following strong public opposition to the CEPA, the current Sirisena-Wickremasinghe government proposed in 2015 another bilateral economic agreement in place of the CEPA called the Indo-Sri Lanka Economic and Technology Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECTA). Public opposition to ECTA is high as it essentially contains similar contents to the CEPA.