India fears espionage attack
Sri Lanka allows Chinese spy ship to dock
08/14/2022 03:01 am
Beijing is one of the largest lenders to Sri Lanka. The island state is now allowing a Chinese surveillance ship to enter. In India, the news caused alarm.
After several days of delay, a military surveillance ship from China is allowed to dock in a port in the troubled country of Sri Lanka – despite security concerns in neighboring India. According to the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry in Colombo, “Yuan Wang 5” will arrive at the southern port of Hambantota next Tuesday and will remain anchored there until August 22.
The ship, which belongs to China’s People’s Liberation Army and which, according to media reports, is used to track satellites and ICBMs and is also described as a spy ship, was originally launched last Thursday. was scheduled to dock there. True, Sri Lanka did not give any specific reason for postponing the arrival of the ship. However, security concerns on the part of India are suspected to be behind this.
The Indian government had expressed concern that the surveillance ship could spy on military installations, given Sri Lanka’s proximity to mainland India. However, the Ministry of External Affairs in Colombo assured that the Chinese ship would only dock in Sri Lanka to load supplies.
India has provided extensive assistance, including food, fuel, medicines and cooking gas to neighboring Sri Lanka, which is facing severe economic crisis. Also, Sri Lanka is dependent on China, one of the country’s biggest lenders, which has agreed to a debt restructuring. It is considered a condition of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout program that Sri Lanka had hoped for.
China has lent billions to Sri Lanka for development projects, some of which critics say are of little benefit to the small but strategically important island nation in the Indian Ocean. This includes the port of Hambantota, which Sri Lanka leased to China in 2017 as it was unable to repay its debt. According to media reports, India fears that the port of Hambantota Beijing may serve as a military base in the future. It is close to the main shipping routes from Asia to Europe.
