Despite India’s strong reservations about a Chinese nuclear submarine at the Colombo port in September, the BJP government has learned that Sri Lanka has permitted another Chinese attack submarine to dock at a Lankan port.
According to the information received, the second docking is likely to take place very soon, Times Of India reported.
The presence of Chinese submarines across Palk Straits has deeply disturbed the Indian government which is making another call to Lankan authorities, this time to convey strong displeasure. The news of a second Chinese submarine docking in Sri Lanka comes days after the visit of Vietnam PM Nguyen Tan Dung to India and in complete disregard of India’s message to Sri Lankan defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa earlier this month.
The Chinese fleet of submarines, both diesel and nuclear-powered (of which three can fire ballistic missiles), represent some of Beijing’s most offensive military capabilities and have been the focus of international media when one of them propelled through Indian Ocean waters for the first time earlier this year, making its way to the Persian Gulf.
In a recent report, Wall Street Journal described the Chinese submarine fleet as Beijing’s most significant military challenge in the region. And for them to surface at Sri Lankan ports brings alive some of New Delhi’s worst fears of China’s expanding presence in India’s neighbourhood.
Sri Lanka’s assurance — even from the highest level — that China has no military presence in the island nation does not inspire confidence.
What seems to have angered New Delhi is that the permission for docking another nuclear sub comes even after India conveyed to defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who is also brother of the president, that it had serious reservations about the Colombo docking on September 15.
This Colombo stop for the sub in September came while President Pranab Mukherjee was touring Vietnam and when Indian and Chinese troops were locked in a face-off at Chumar in southeastern Ladakh. China later said the sub had docked in Colombo on its way to the Gulf of Aden.
