Authorities reported that Sri Lanka’s government on Saturday approved a disputed Chinese research vessel to visit the island, despite India’s fears that it would spy on New Delhi’s military sites.
On international shipping and analytics websites, the Yuan Wang 5 is stated as a research and survey vessel; nevertheless, Indian media refers to it as a dual-purpose spy ship.
New Delhi, which sees both as firmly within its sphere of influence, is suspicious of Beijing’s growing clout in the Indian Ocean and in Sri Lanka.
On August 11, the Yuan Wang 5 was scheduled to dock in the Chinese-controlled Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, but Colombo requested Beijing to postpone the trip indefinitely when India voiced its worries. However, Nirmal P. Silva, the harbor manager of Sri Lanka, asserted that he had secured approval from the foreign ministry for the ship to call in Hambantota from August 16 to 22.
According to officials in the foreign ministry, the original approval for the visit, which had been given by Colombo on July 12—the day before the former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa departed the nation after months of instability over the country’s worst-ever economic crisis—was extended.
Rajapaksa fled to Singapore and then announced his resignation; his brother Mahinda, who held the presidency from 2005 until 2015, borrowed heavily from China.
Tens of thousands of protesters occupied Rajapaksa’s palace and home in Colombo after claims of bad leadership during an economic crisis that led to serious shortages of food, fuel, and medications. According to port officials, the Chinese ship was approaching the Hambantota deep sea port slowly on Friday night at a distance of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) southeast of Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka built the port for a Chinese company for less than $1.4 billion and leased it to China for $1.12 billion over a 99-year period. Indian reports claim that the Yuan Wang 5 has specific uses for intercontinental ballistic missile launches and may be used to track satellites and other spacecraft.
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