Author: TELO Admin

A Chinese national suspected of having used a forged passport in an attempt to enter Sri Lanka was set to be deported, and reports suggest that he was later allowed to enter the country via the Katunayake Airport.

On the 18th of May 2023, two Chinese nationals and an Egyptian had arrived in Sri Lanka from Dubai and one of the Chinese men had produced a Guinea passport at the Katunayake Airport.

Immigration and Emigration officers at the BIA had denied entry to the Chinese national upon deciding that the passport he produced was forged.

News 1st’s Airport Correspondent said that thereafter, the Chinese national and his colleagues had behaved in an unruly manner.

It was then that State Minister Arundhika Fernando had intervened with the incident.

On the 19th of May 2023, the State Minister had addressed a letter to the Controller General of Immigration and Emigration informing that the Chinese national had arrived in Sri Lanka to discuss a housing project that will be launched under his ministry.

The State Minister had requested that the Chinese man be allowed to enter Sri Lanka upon considering his Chinese passport.

“The Chinese company based in Sri Lanka said that he is a genuine person, and he possesses a Chinese passport. They said that they will be responsible with regard to any punishment imposed on him, or on the decision to deport him. Therefore, I spoke to the Controller of Immigration and Emigration. I asked if it is possible to allow him to enter the country, using the Chinese passport. I addressed the letter on his advice and I did not influence him in any way,” exlained the State Minister.

The Department of Immigration and Emigration comes under the Ministry of Public Security, and the matter was raised with Minister Tiran Alles.

He said that he had have given instructions to “take him (Chinese national) in first and then check with the Chinese Embassy, get all the details and to take a decision.”

State Minister Arundika Fernando said that later was made aware that a Chinese national cannot use two passports.

The Department of Immigration and Emigration recorded a statement from the Chinese national in question and commenced an investigation.

As the G7 leaders sent a strong message to Russia by inviting Volodymyr Zelensky to Hiroshima, another rival was also on their minds – China.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said China posed “the greatest challenge of our age” in regards to global security and prosperity, and that it was “increasingly authoritarian at home and abroad”.

And in not one but two statements, the leaders of the world’s richest democracies made clear to Beijing their stance on divisive issues such as the Indo-Pacific and Taiwan. But the most important part of their message centred on what they called “economic coercion”.

It’s a tricky balancing act for the G7. Through trade their economies have become inextricably dependent on China, but competition with Beijing has increased and they disagree on many issues including human rights.

Now, they worry they are being held hostage.

In recent years, Beijing has been unafraid to slap trade sanctions on countries that have displeased them. This includes South Korea, when Seoul installed a US missile defence system, and Australia during a recent period of chilly relations.

The European Union was particularly alarmed when China blocked Lithuanian exports after the Baltic country allowed Taiwan to set up a de facto embassy there.

So it is unsurprising that the G7 would condemn what they see as a “disturbing rise” of the “weaponisation of economic vulnerabilities”.

This coercion, they said, seeks to “undermine the foreign and domestic policies and positions of G7 members as well as partners around the world”.

They called for “de-risking”- a policy that Ms von der Leyen, who is attending the summit, has championed. This is a more moderate version of the US’ idea of “decoupling” from China, where they would talk tougher in diplomacy, diversify trade sources, and protect trade and technology.

They have also launched a “coordination platform” to counter the coercion and work with emerging economies. While it’s still vague on how this would work exactly, we’re likely to see countries helping each other out by increasing trade or funding to work around any blockages put up by China.

The G7 also plans to strengthen supply chains for important goods such as minerals and semiconductors, and beef up digital infrastructure to prevent hacking and stealing of technology.

But the biggest stick they plan to wield is multilateral export controls. This means working together to ensure their technologies, particularly those used in military and intelligence, don’t end up in the hands of “malicious actors”.

The US is already doing this with its ban on exports of chips and chip technology to China, which Japan and the Netherlands have joined. The G7 is making clear such efforts would not only continue, but ramp up, despite Beijing’s protestations.

They also said they would continue to crack down on the “inappropriate transfers” of technology shared through research activities. The US and many other countries have been concerned about industrial espionage and have jailed people accused of stealing tech secrets for China.

At the same time, the G7 leaders were clear they did not want to sever the cord.

Much of their language on economic coercion did not name China, in an apparent diplomatic attempt to not directly point a finger at Beijing.

When they did talk about China, they stood their ground in a nuanced way.

They sought to placate Beijing, saying their policies were “not designed to harm China nor do we seek to thwart China’s economic progress and development”. They were “not decoupling or turning inwards”.

But they also put pressure on the Chinese to cooperate, saying that a “growing China that plays by international rules would be of global interest”.

They also called for “candid” engagement where they could still express their concerns directly to China, signalling their willingness to keep communication lines open in a tense atmosphere.

We won’t know how, privately, Chinese leaders and diplomats will take the G7’s message. But state media in the past has hit back at the West for trying to have it both ways, by criticising China while also enjoying the fruits of their economic partnership.

For now Beijing has chosen to fall back on its usual angry rhetoric for its public response.

China had clearly anticipated the G7’s statements and in the days leading up to the summit, its state media and embassies put out pieces accusing the US of its own economic coercion and hypocrisy.

On Saturday evening, they accused the G7 of “smearing and attacking” China and lodged a complaint with summit organiser Japan.

They also urged the other G7 countries not to become the US’ “accomplice in economic coercion”, and called on them to “stop ganging up to form exclusive blocs” and “containing and bludgeoning other countries”.

It is worth noting that China has also sought to create its own alliances with other countries, and late last week just as the G7 summit kicked off, it hosted a parallel meeting with Central Asian countries.

It’s still not clear if the G7’s plan will work. But it is likely to be welcomed by those who have called for a clear strategy to handle China’s encroachments.

Indo-Pacific and China expert Andrew Small praised the statement as having “the feel of a real consensus”, noting that it expressed the “centre-ground” view of the G7.

“There are still major debates playing out around what ‘de-risking’ actually means, how far some of the sensitive technology export restrictions should go, and what sort of collective measures need to be taken against economic coercion,” said Dr Small, a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund think tank.

“But there is now a clear and explicit framing around how the economic relationships with China among the advanced industrial economies need to be rebalanced.”

Source – BBC