Mike Pompeo has made attacks on China the center of an Asian tour this week. (File)
Colombia, Sri Lanka:
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the Chinese Communist government a “predator” on Wednesday as it sought to distance Sri Lanka from Beijing’s influence and then bolstered the US diplomatic presence in neighboring Maldives to counter the Asian superpower.
Sri Lanka and the Maldives, both strategically located on major Indian Ocean trade routes, have borrowed heavily from Beijing in recent years, worrying Washington and other countries affected by China’s rise to power.
Pompeo made attacks on China the subject of an Asian tour this week that started in India and is now moving from the Indian Ocean islands to Indonesia.
During a 12-hour stay in Colombo, Pompeo described China as a “predator”, prompting a backlash on social media from the Chinese embassy.
“A sovereign and strong Sri Lanka is a powerful strategic partner for the United States on the world stage,” Pompeo told reporters after talks with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
Pompeo said Washington provided military training and two coastguard ships to Sri Lanka, contrasting its aid with China.
“We see in bad agreements, violations of sovereignty and lawlessness on land and sea, that the Chinese Communist Party is a predator and that the United States comes in a different way,” Pompeo said.
Aliens jibe
The Chinese Embassy in Colombo responded by tweeting a promotional image from the “Aliens vs Predator” video game.
“Sorry Secretary Pompeo, we are busy promoting Sino-Sri Lankan friendship and cooperation, we are not interested in your invitation to Alien v Predator match,” he said.
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena made no reference to China during the press conference with Pompeo. Rajapaksa told Pompeo he was not prepared to compromise the island’s independence and denied that the country is heading for a Chinese debt trap, his office said.
Sri Lanka borrowed billions of dollars from China for infrastructure when Rajapaksa’s brother Mahinda was the country’s leader from 2005 to 2015.
Unable to repay a $ 1.4 billion loan to build a deepwater port, the country was forced to lease the port to a Chinese company for 99 years in 2017.
Yang Jiechi, a senior member of the Communist Party of China politburo, pledged additional economic aid while in Colombo this month.
China has in the past helped Sri Lanka combat allegations of human rights violations, particularly in the final months of its decades-long Tamil civil war in 2009, when the current president was primarily responsible for defense. from the country.
After laying a wreath and praying at Saint Anthony’s Roman Catholic Church, where 56 of the 279 people killed in last year’s Easter Sunday suicide bombings, Pompeo flew to the Maldives.
He said the launch of a resident US embassy in Male ‘was an “unwavering commitment to the Maldives and the Indo-Pacific region”, following discussions with President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.
China opened a full embassy in Male in 2011, becoming one of the first states to have a resident diplomatic mission in the archipelago, known as a hotspot for honeymooners and high-end tourists.
Pompeo warned the Maldives, a nation of 340,000 Sunni Muslims, of Beijing’s “lawless and threatening behavior”.
He said China is also leaving behind levels of marine debris that would be “unacceptable” for other countries. The Maldives depend on their pristine beaches to support luxury tourism.
The Vietnamese government has said it expects Pompeo to stop there after Indonesia, but this was not immediately confirmed by the State Department.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
