Sri Lanka & Taiwan: The Two Unsinkable Aircraft Carriers Of The Sino-American Geopolitics In The Indo-Pacific Theater

By Patric Mendis –JUNE 4, 2020

Prof. Patrick Mendis

The deadly coronavirus will present a novel strategic landscape for China and the United States to begin the world anew. During this extraordinary covid-19 crisis, President Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have neither put aside their longstanding geopolitical ambitions nor their “core” interests abroad.[1] The crisis has revealed the underlying priorities of the CCP, and President Xi wasted no time taking advantage of the epidemic by engaging in the two island nations of Sri Lanka and Taiwan.[2]

Likewise, both islands have become increasingly more vital to American foreign policy objectives, including freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region, democratic governance, and regional peace and prosperity. President Donald Trump quietly signed the new Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) Act on March 26, 2020.[3] The legislation would certainly enhance mutual confidence and optimism in US-Taiwan relations; however, the Trump State Department’s ability to implement and adjust foreign assistance with other countries would require significant funding and need to compete with the CCP’s financial assistance to those countries. With Sri Lanka, the Trump administration has thus far unsuccessfully pushed for signing the Millennium Challenge Compact (MCC) of $480 million and the renewal of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).[4] The MCC is part of the American foreign assistance program established by the Millennium Challenge Corporation in 2004–separate from the State Department and the US Agency for International Development. SOFA, meanwhile, is a bilaterally agreed upon framework under which deployed American military personnel would operate in Sri Lanka and that details how the country’s domestic laws would apply to them. Nevertheless, the Pentagon has devised Washington’s Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) by combining the Indian and Pacific Oceans into a single military theater. The IPS addresses the rise of China and counters its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), while strengthening US relations with Colombo and Taipei.

Since the Trump administration designated China a “strategic competitor,” Sri Lanka and Taiwan have increasingly become plausible geopolitical flashpoints in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.[5] Given the Trump administration’s pre-coronavirus budget priorities, however, the resource allocation for IPS rings somewhat hollow in responding to the fundamental concerns of China’s growing influence over Sri Lanka and Taiwan. While General Douglas MacArthur memorably referred to the latter as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier,” the description aptly characterizes both Sri Lanka and Taiwan. [6],[7]

Words vs. Deeds

When the pathogen began to multiply rapidly beyond China and spread to the United States and other countries, Beijing tried to block Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as the global community collectively started to fight against the epidemic.[8] In response, the United States lobbied forcefully in favor of Taiwanese participation at these UN agencies, allowing Taiwanese health experts to have a voice at the WHO forum.[9] To distract from negative press coverage and to divert attention away from their mistakes handling the outbreak, Beijing began to conduct war-games in the Taiwan Strait in February and promoted a conspiracy theory in March 2020 that claimed the US military brought the pandemic to Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province.[10],[11] These were widely perceived as provocations, prompting the United States to send reconnaissance aircraft through the Strait towards the Philippines and the South China Sea while President Trump publicly began to refer to the coronavirus as the “China virus.” [12],[13]

While visiting Sri Lanka in mid-January, Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced the importance of the island to China’s BRI and foreign policy and security interests. The foreign minister said that China “will not allow any outside influences to interfere” on the island’s internal affairs.[14] When Minister Wang met with the newly elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the president expressed that he was an “admirer of President Xi Jinping” and “followed his speeches and statements closely.”[15] Reiterating that China is a “reliable” friend and a “strategic partner,” the foreign minister Wang assured the President that “China will continue to stand by Sri Lanka’s interests.”[16]

Immediately after Minister Wang’s visit, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Alice Wells and Senior Director Lisa Curtis of the National Security Council arrived in Colombo to deliver a letter from President Donald Trump to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.[17] Ambassador Wells told Rajapaksa and his brother Mahinda (the current prime minister and former president from 2005-15) that “a wider and safer Indo-Pacific region” is a mutual interest of theirs and that strengthening “military-to-military engagements” and expanding trade relations are equally beneficial to both countries.[18]

Sri Lanka renewed its Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) with the United States for another ten years in 2017 during the pro-American Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration (2015-19), which was initially signed by then-Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa during his brother’s presidency. Since August 2018, Washington has been trying to revise and reinstate the SOFA agreement that was first secured in 1995, when Mahinda Rajapaksa’s party was also in power. A pro-China administration returning to power in Colombo gives the Trump White House some reason to worry about the balance of power in the Indian Ocean region, as China has already offered Sri Lanka a 10-year $500 million loan in March to mitigate the financial impact of covid-19.[19]

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