On January 18, a Reuters reported claimed that Sri Lanka’s now former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, had expelled the station chief of India’s intelligence agency in Colombo after accusing him of working against his government and supporting the opposition.
India denied the claim, but the report serves as an example of Rajapaksa’s thorny attitude towards New Delhi, irrespective of the face presented by public diplomacy.
The docking last September of a Chinese naval submarine in Colombo turned heads in New Delhi, just as the new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi was still getting up to speed. The event underlined the magnitude of Chinese influence in Sri Lanka under Rajapaksa, despite assurances from Beijing that the docking was a routine stopover to re-stock on supplies before heading to the Gulf of Aden to participate in anti-piracy operations.
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