When dealing with the IMF, former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa sought advice from India.He persuaded India to intervene in order to hold preliminary talks with the IMF. However, as soon as Ranil became President, he sought a neutral country to support to carry out the IMF programme in order to obtain Chinese assistance for debt restructuring. He believed that if India intervened, China would not participate in the debt restructuring process. He suggested to Japan that a loan conference be held for Sri Lanka. However, it was not well received in Japan.
At this point, French President Emmanuel Macron is attempting to gain Chinese support for debt restructuring of bankrupt African countries. When he met with the Chinese president, he asked for Chinese assistance in restructuring debt in bankrupt African countries. The President of France decided to host a ‘New Global Financing Pact Summit’ in France, inviting leaders from countries that had gone bankrupt due to debt. Ranil was also invited. Zambia was unable to restructure their debt due to lack of Chinese support, at the summit, all other countries including China agreed to restructure Zambian debt. Because of Zambia’s victory, foreign media speculated that other bankrupt countries would benefit as well.
Conflict resolution was a popular topic in the world before Covid. When Ranil became Prime Minister in 2002 and started negotiations with the LTTE, conflict resolution became a popular topic in Sri Lanka as well. Norway intervened for that. Debt resolution has become a popular topic in the post-Covid world. The French president seems to be interested in that. The Paris Club was among the lenders to the bankrupt countries, and it was a good opportunity for the French president to intervene in the debt resolution.
Ranil has high hopes for this Zambia project of the French President. France is a country that offered to help solve the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka. At the critical time of the war, the then French Foreign Minister came to Sri Lanka with the British Foreign Secretary and met the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa and requested to declare a ceasefire to save the Tamil refugees caught in the war. France also played a key role in the UNHRC resolution on human rights violations during the war. The relationship between France and Sri Lanka has a long history. Historical sources tell about De La Nerolle, a French lieutenant who advised the kings of Sri Lanka around 1672. Historical sources say that before the British came to Sri Lanka, the kings of Sri Lanka worked to establish relations with France.
It seems that Ranil has high hopes to be a part of the victory given to Zambia by the intervention of the French President. That is why Ranil sent Foreign Minister Ali Sabri to China after that victory.
But Professor Stephan Chau of the School of Oriental and African studies in London told the South China Morning Post, a pro-Chinese media, about this Zambia victory, “The deal is very welcome to Zambia. But it is China who got what it wanted.” (24.06.2023).
This is not good news for Ranil, who is trying to share the victory in Zambia. The reason is because India and Japan are watching how Sri Lanka restructures its Chinese debt
