Pompeo tours Sri Lanka and the Maldives – frontiers in the US-China struggle for influence

The US presidential election might only be two weeks away, but the Trump administration’s foreign policy machine is showing no signs of winding down. While the President himself has unveiled a packed schedule of rallies and events across the country, his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced on Tuesday that he will visit two Indian Ocean nations next week.

Pompeo’s trip to the Maldives and Sri Lanka offers some insights into the geopolitical issues that Trump’s White House might choose to focus on, if given another term by voters on 3 November – namely, China. Although best known for pristine beaches and luxury hotels, the Maldives has in recent years become an economic and diplomatic battleground between the two most prominent powers in the region – China and India.

For decades, the Maldivian archipelago was firmly in India’s sphere of influence, with the island nation building close economic and political ties with its northern neighbour. However, when Abdulla Yameen of the Progressive Party was elected as the country’s President in 2013, the Maldives began to swing rapidly into China’s orbit, using capital investment from Beijing to fund colossal public works programmes. One such project, the creatively-named China-Maldives Friendship Bridge, links the capital Male with its airport and was built with £150 million of Chinese funds.

China’s growing economic presence in the Indian Ocean has been a cause for serious concern among Indian politicians. While the Maldives has pledged to maintain the Indian Ocean as a demilitarised zone, Yameen’s government raised eyebrows in New Delhi when it introduced a law that allowed foreigners to own property that had been primarily reclaimed from the sea. The fear was that China would be able to use the archipelago as a base to extend its naval reach into the region.

However, in 2018, Yameen failed to secure another term as President, having been defeated by Ibrahim Solih, the Democratic Party candidate. The legacy of Chinese investment is now a wedge issue fought over by the government and its opposition, with the new Speaker of the parliament warning that the country owes around £2.5 billion in debt to the Chinese government. For a country with a GDP of only around £3.8 billion, that is a significant liability and has led to many pointing at it as a “debt trap”.

The political movement behind the pursuit of closer ties with China, however, has not gone away. While Solih’s government has sought a return of closer ties with India, including securing a further £400 million in infrastructure loans and grants from Delhi, not all Maldivians are happy with that approach. Public distrust of India’s Modi government, combined with criticism of their military radar network based in the Maldives, has led to protests and the popular “#IndiaOut” trend online. Yameen is now imprisoned on corruption charges, and the government is accusing the opposition of whipping up anti-Indian sentiment as a distraction.

Sri Lanka, the next stop on Pompeo’s tour, understands these tensions well. Like the Maldives, relations with China have defined a succession of governments in the island nation. Their former President – Maithripala Sirisena – similarly racked up a large tab with China in the name of infrastructure-building. But when he was voted out of office in 2015, it became clear that the country would struggle to repay what it owed and began to explore options for debt relief.

Sri Lanka’s new government settled on handing over the Indian Ocean Port of Hambantona to Beijing, which had been built with Chinese funds and by a Chinese state enterprise on a 99-year deal. The arrangement wiped out around £800 million in Sri Lanka’s debt, and gave China a new foothold in the busy commercial waterway, just off the coast of its geopolitical rival, India. The strategy of expanding the reach of China’s maritime holdings by funding and leasing ports has been a key part of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, as has been seen in Greece.

China’s strategic expansion hasn’t escaped the attention of Trump’s White House, which has declared itself firmly on the side of India as a counterbalance in the region. In June, Pompeo announced that while the US is pulling back troops from European missions, it would look to strengthen its presence in Asia in response to perceived Chinese aggression on the border with India. China’s maritime ambitions are also in the firing line, with the US repeatedly accusing the country of making illegal demands in the South China Sea.

Last week, the US’ Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group returned to the South China Sea, where it has been overtly signalling Washington’s commitment to international freedom of navigation in the waters. Now, as Mike Pompeo prepares to visit the region, it is clear that the White House has set its sights on Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean as well.

Gabriel Gavin is a London-based policy consultant and an analyst of Eurasian politics.