When a foreign journalist asked J.R. why he decided to sign the Indo-Lanka Pact, J.R. stated that he asked the US for assistance in fighting the war without fear of India’s influence, but the US refused. It is clear from J.R.’s response that he attempted to pit India and the US against each other and hoped for US assistance. JR’s nephew Ranil appears to be experimenting with JR’s Divide and Rule Diplomacy.
Recently, Ranil’s uncle’s ‘Daily Mirror’ newspaper published a news item reporting foreign Minister Ali Sabry’s statement. Below is the news item.
‘Sri Lanka has informed the United States and Japan to have direct dialogue regarding matters of their own geopolitical concerns but not those of any third party, Daily Mirror learns.
Daily Mirror reliably learns that Foreign Minister Ali Sabry conveyed such a message to these countries when he met with their representatives including U.S. Under Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland in recent times.
The minister had a series of bilateral engagements on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
Mr. Sabry is reported to have requested these countries to raise their concerns on any matter directly but not those of any third country.
Sri Lanka is currently under trilateral pressure involving India, Japan and the U.S. over the planned visit of the Chinese research vessel ‘Shi Yang 6’.
China insists that the ship visit should take place in October though Sri Lanka wants it to be deferred till November’.
This news was published when there was a big controversy regarding the arrival of the Chinese Shi Yang 6 ships to Sri Lanka. Ali Sabri is talking about three countries in that statement. These three countries should be India, America and Japan. All these three countries have protested regarding the Chinese ship. When America and India declared it openly, Japan expressed its opposition through those countries. Ali Sabri says that the United States should discuss geopolitical issues related to Sri Lanka directly with Sri Lanka and that Japan should directly discuss geopolitical issues, and should not discuss those issues through a third country.
Sabri’s third country should be India. In other words, Ali Sabri says that America and Japan should not talk about India and Sri Lanka’s geopolitical issues. India should not discuss its geopolitical issues concerning Sri Lanka through America and Japan. Before Ranil’s first visit to Japan as President, an official of the Presidential Secretariat, who did not wish to be named, had told a website that Ranil was trying to find a way to deal directly with America and Japan separately during his visit to Japan without getting involved in the India-China conflict.
It means that Ranil is unwilling to deal with Sri Lanka together with this American, Indian and Japanese alliance. It looks Ranil does not approve of America doing dealings with South Asian countries through India. But it seems that Ranil’s effort has not been successful from the news on Ali Sabri in the Daily Mirror newspaper.
Earlier in this column, this writer stated that Ranil’s divide-and-rule diplomacy would be applied between the Vatican, Cardinal and the Catholic Church of Sri Lanka. Today, it has become a reality. Ranil told the German Channel that the cardinal and the bishops’ conference are at odds. The bishops’ conference has to release a statement demonstrating no disagreement among them. This is a risky game of divide-and-conquer diplomacy. It is too early to predict whether Ranil will win this game or not but, Playing this game with the United States, Japan, and India is akin to playing with fire.
