Mr Rajapaksa in turn granted the Chinese unprecedented concessions, infrastructure contracts and military cooperation. The Wickremesinghe government had been dismissive of this claim; Mr Sirisena seized on it as a good reason for making a clean break. Meanwhile, the president suspended parliament till mid-November -- which means that Mr Rajapaksa has a few weeks to cobble together the legislative majority he'll need to stay in power. One senior member of Mr Wickremesinghe's party has already claimed that "Chinese money" is "buying" members of parliament for Mr Rajapaksa. Sri Lanka has barely emerged from a decades-long civil war; it is not ready to become another front in an India-China cold war for control of the Indian Ocean.

Source: Bangkok Post October 30, 2018 21:45 UTC