Sri Lanka’s delicate balancing act (Patrick Mendis, Dániel Balázs, East Asia Forum)

Sri Lanka’s former pro-Chinese ‘strongman’ President Mahinda Rajapaksa was voted out of office in January 2015. The new administration, led by President Maithripala Sirisena, is committed to more ‘balanced’ major power relations.

The new government has hit the reset button on Sri Lanka’s foreign policy, with initial overseas visits by Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to India,Japan and the United Kingdom. Sirisena also met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to express his government’s willingness to participate in the Sri Lanka-centricMaritime Silk Road, one pillar of China’s ambitious ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) initiative.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/05/02/sri-lankas-delicate-balancing-act/

When the TPP and One Belt, One Road meet (Patrick Mendis, Harvard University, Dániel Balázs,Tongji University, East Asia Forum)

After years of talks, negotiators concluded an agreement on the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in October 2015. Since China is excluded from the TPP, one would expect antagonism rather than symbiosis between the Washington-advocated trade package and Beijing’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) strategy. But closer scrutiny suggests that the TPP and OBOR may be converging by design and destiny.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2016/04/26/when-the-tpp-and-one-belt-one-road-meet/