The reported bid by a leading Sri Lankan Buddhist monk to invite the Dalai Lama to Sri Lanka received flak from official as well as non-official quarters, The New Indian Express reported.

“It will stir up a hornet’s nest, as it goes against Sri Lanka’s time honored ‘One China’ policy. Lankans are acutely aware of the fact that China does not like any country inviting the Dalai Lama,” a senior official of the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry told The New Indian Express requesting anonymity.

President of the Mahabodhi Society of Sri Lanka Banagala Upatissa Thero, expressed his wish to invite the Tibetan spiritual leader to Sri Lanka at a conference organized by the International Buddhist Confederation in New Delhi  this week.   

“The timing of the monk’s announcement is most inappropriate as the President is to visit China on March 26. We wonder if someone is fishing in troubled waters,” the official said.

According to another official, the move reflects India’s bid to establish ‘civilizational links’ with Buddhist countries to counter China’s World Fellowship of Buddhists.

China has been a friend of Sri Lanka over the years and Sri Lanka has also reciprocated accordingly. When there was a severe rice shortage in Lanka in the 1950s, China agreed to barter its rice for Sri Lankan rubber. This came to be known as the Rubber-Rice Pact. Later, when Western nations and India refused to sell arms to Lanka to fight the LTTE, China sold weapons. China has pumped in billions of dollars into post-war infrastructure development projects without making any political demands or raising human rights issues.

This has been the nature of Chinese diplomacy in much of the so called ‘developing world.’

In return, Lanka has refrained from inviting the Dalai Lama. Attempts by Buddhist monks to invite him in 1999 and 2006, were shot down by governments of the day.

“The Bodu Bala Sena wanted to invite him last year but the Chinese told the Rajapaksa government that it should not allow it,” BBS CEO Dilanthe Withanage told The New Indian Express.

However, former Ambassador Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka told The New Indian Express that given the pronounced pro-West leanings of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, government might allow the Lama’s visit. At any rate, the government has already alienated China by stopping its projects, he added.
(With inputs from The New Indian Express)