Mike Pompeo to visit Sri Lanka, Maldives amid rising tensions with China

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Sri Lanka and the Maldives this month, said reportedly a senior official on October 20. While the United States is seeking to balance the growing influence of China in the region, PTI quoted a cabinet spokesperson and Sri Lankan Minister Keheliya Rambukwella saying that Pompeo will hold talks in Colombo on October 28. The Sri Lankan lawmaker also added that US Secretary of State’s visit will primarily focus on the arrangement of transport air bubbles amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As per reports, the foreign ministry officials have said that Pompeo will travel to the Maldives after Sri Lanka. However, US Secretary of State’s visit is due to take place just weeks after the high-powered Chinese delegation led by the ruling Communist Party Politburo member Yang Jiechi visited Colombo. China is also reportedly the biggest investors in several infrastructural projects in Sri Lanka. 

But it has also triggered severe backlash both locally and globally along with growing concerns that China has enticed Sri Lanka into a debt trap. The previous Sri Lankan government of President Maithripala Sirisena had reportedly entered into a 99-year lease with China in 2017 as a settlement of its debt by way of equity. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s economy and its tourism sector, like other nations has suffered a huge blow even last year after the Easter Sunday attacks that killed more than 250 people. Now, it’s crippling due to COVID-19 pandemic. 

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Pompeo urges Brazil to decrease Chinese imports

It is reportedly expected that Pompeo would try to balance out Chinese influence in Sri Lanka as at a virtual US-Brazil summit aimed at recovery after the pandemic, US Secretary of State highlighted the need to lessen the dependence on China for imports. Calling Chins’ significant participation in the nation’s economies  “enormous risk”, Pompeo urged that increased collaboration can reduce China’s need for “critical terms”.

Meanwhile, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told the summit organised by US Chamber of Commerce, “In the last year and a half, together with President Trump, we have elevated Brazil-U.S. relations to its best moment ever, and opened a new chapter in the relationship between the two largest economies and democracies in the hemisphere.”

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Image: AP