On 11 September 2023, the Institute for Security and Development Policy published NESA Center alum Asanga Abeyagoonasekera's policy brief titled "Amid Reports on Chinese Expansion of Bases, Sri Lanka Unveils SOP: Need for a Reality Check?"

ABSTRACT:

India has realized it cannot possibly balance China’s growing influence on its own, nor can it afford to have the U.S. leave the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) given China’s significant presence in the island littorals. New Delhi requires the island nations much more than in the past to collectively balance Indian Ocean security. Sri Lanka is pivotal in this equation. Reports published by Aid Data and RAND have identified the Sri Lankan port Hambantota as a highly probable PLA military base. This issue brief attempts to analyze the US research reports and further draws attention to the geopolitical trends in the IOR, where India, China, and the U.S. are entangled in a great power competition. Against this backdrop, how will Sri Lanka maneuver its foreign policy? Will India further facilitate space for the U.S., just like in the past establishment of Diego Garcia? What will be the success of the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) introduced by the Sri Lankan government due to security sensitivities concerning New Delhi?

Read the full brief

About the Author

Asanga Abeyagoonasekera is an International Security and Geopolitics Analyst and Strategic Advisor from Sri Lanka. He is a Senior Fellow and Executive Director of the South Asia Foresight Network (SAFN) at the Millennium Project in Washington, DC.

About the Publisher

The Institute for Security and Development Policy is a Stockholm-based non-profit and non-partisan research and policy organization. ISDP is dedicated to expanding understanding of international affairs, focusing on the inter-relationship between security, conflict, and development.

The views presented in this article are those of the speaker or author and do not necessarily represent the views of DoD or its components.