The ‘Himalayan’ blunder committed by Nehru and Krishna Menon in their China policy has been re-enacted by their descendants in the Indian Establishment nearly half a century later. A couple of years ago, writing on the crisis in the island of Sri Lanka, a TamilNet article quoted a saying in Tamil about the dog that allowed the squirrel to climb the tree (A’nil ea’ravidda naay). Now it seems that it isn’t just one but many in that situation, after allowing the ethnic question in the island to be hijacked by China. India has to realise at least now that a united Sri Lanka, that too an enforced one, at the cost of its natural ally – and at the cost of ruining its leverage with it – is no guarantee to prevent China’s ambitions in South Asia.
China’s neighbours have been experiencing for quite a long time the brutal and unsophisticated ways of its foreign policy of naked selfishness and its choice of promoting ruthless leadership in countries where ever it wants to implement its agenda. There is no history that China ever cared for ideology or values other than its self-interest when it comes to foreign policy.
The legend goes that when JVP leaders after the 1971 insurrection were incarcerated in Fort Hammenhiel, off Kayts in Jaffna, the government soldiers ridiculed at those who were reading books in the prison, saying that Mao gave them books but gave guns to Colombo.
It is time Asian, African and Latin American countries learn from Sri Lanka of the danger of allowing China to meddle with their affairs.
The West has to realise and has to immediately come out with remedies for its wrong approach to the world through ‘war on terror’ that has not only weakened it, but has also paved way for the success of terrorist regimes and terrorist imperialism.
Mahinda Rajapaksa and Co., guilty of war crimes, is trying to hide behind the ‘China shield’ as a last resort to save its skin. But those who were shedding crocodile tears for the ‘human shield in Vanni’ are unable to provide even toilets to the civilians incarcerated in the concentration camps today.
Meanwhile, a diplomat of another far-eastern ’empire’ who contributed immensely to the misery of Eezham Tamils, reported to have said recently that Mahinda Rajapaksa has a ‘vision’ for Tamils and the question of ‘ethnic identity’ should not rise again in the island.
The peril of far-eastern monoism and its tendency to achieve stability for self-interest by hanging on majoritarianism and by ironing out identities have to be nibbed in the bud by the civilised world.
Unless the civilised world joins together and exerts itself in teaching a lesson to the perpetrators of genocide and in delivering justice to the victims, the neo-imperialists and their stooges cannot be checked breaching the norms of humanity in brutal ways in the name of ‘stability’.
Provided herewith is an external link to a related article by Wen Liao, the chairwoman of Longford Advisors, a political, economic, and business consultancy, that appeared in Project Syndicate:
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