Delhi keeps close watch as Colombo lets ban on Chinese spy ships expire, moves to ink maritime pact with Beijing

New Delhi: Colombo has of late not only agreed with Beijing to ink a pact to create a framework for bilateral cooperation in maritime domain awareness but has also refrained from extending the one-year moratorium it had imposed in January 2024 on operations of foreign research vessels in the Sri Lankan waters and port calls by them.

President Anura Kumar Dissanayake’s government in Colombo quietly let the moratorium end on December 31, a year after his predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe had imposed it – in order to allay New Delhi’s concerns over the frequent forays by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s spy ships in the Indian Ocean region, particularly in the Sri Lankan waters. Dissanayake’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing recently saw both sides agreeing to ink a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) soon on ocean cooperation, making a significant step toward ‘blue partnership’.

New Delhi, according to the sources, has taken note of Colombo’s latest move to inking the MoU with Beijing and has been keenly waiting for further details about the pact to assess its implications for India.

Sri Lanka and China shared the desire to continue maritime cooperation on the basis of equality, mutual trust, openness and mutual benefit, and to hold regular bilateral consultations on maritime affairs, according to a joint statement issued after the meeting between the presidents of the two nations. “The two sides are ready to deepen cooperation in such fields as conservation and restoration of the marine environment and ecosystems, maritime domain awareness, maritime rescue and disaster relief, and maritime personnel training and capacity building, and pool their strength to build a maritime community with a shared future,” it noted, adding that the two sides agreed to sign the MoU on Ocean Cooperation.

The increasing forays of China’s research vessels in the maritime neighbourhood of India raised some hackles in New Delhi over the past few years with the communist country’s PLA Navy being known to use the “spy ships” to gather hydrographic information that could help it deploy submarines in the region in the event of a conflict.

Though New Delhi had conveyed its concerns to Colombo, the Sri Lankan government had in August 2022 allowed Yuanwang 5, which the Chinese PLA Navy had often used to track satellites and ballistic missiles apart from gathering hydrographic information, to berth at the country’s Hambantota Port. The island nation’s government had again in October 2023 allowed Chinese PLAN’s research vessel Shi Yan 6 to dock at Colombo Port. However, diplomatic pressure from New Delhi and Washington DC over the next few months had prompted Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government to impose a moratorium for a year on the operations of the foreign research vessels within the Exclusive Economic Zone of Sri Lanka. Colombo had cited the moratorium to turn down Beijing’s request to allow Xiang Yang Hong 3, another spy ship of the Chinese PLAN, to dock at any port in Sri Lanka in early 2024.

Dissanayake visited New Delhi last month and reassured Prime Minister Narendra Modi that Sri Lanka would never allow its territory to be used for “any activity that could be adversarial to the security interests of India or might pose a threat to the stability of the region”.

He, however, a few days later, discussed with Qin Boyong, vice chairperson of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the ways to resume China’s maritime research in and around Sri Lanka.

A source in New Delhi said that any pact to step up cooperation between Sri Lanka and China on maritime domain awareness might be used to create a framework for the operation of the e Chinese PLAN’s research vessels around the tiny nation.