Michael Roberts

A few days back I circulated the three recent THUPPAHI articles on China (see below) to a number of my friends and collective groups with this note:

• “I attach three items on China in the international order today –vital reading for all personnel concerned with Sri Lanka’s relationships with the various forces engaged in the Indian Ocean.
• Sometime back an Aussie friend who speaks Chinese told me

A = that the overwhelming body of Aussie writing on China is ideologically driven;

B= that this corpus of writing depends at times on leaks from “govt sources” which he believes emanate from a secret backroom body of boffins;

C = … with the intent of painting China as a demonic force and potential threat.

 Alexei Talimonov cartoons …..https://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/China%20Dragon_19987

TAKE NOTE of that set of observations.

THEN ….. Ask yourself whether the picture painted in the West-of  Gotabaya and the Rajapaksa coterie BEFORE the Pres/Election  — whether by Alan Keenan, the BBC, the NY Times, the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice, the Economist or Taylor Dibbertwriting for the Lowy Institute in Australia — could not be part of this type of campaign of disinformation, slant and persuasion push?,…..

WHICH, then, gets taken up in modified ways as elements in further campaigns of DISINFORMATION after the unfavourable result imposed on the world by our Sri Lankan people on 19^th November. 

Be that as it may, I note parenthetically that I am not in a position to determine whether this act of voting Gotabaya in as President was motivated by

* intelligent thinking … or

* Sinhala chauvinism …. or

* local knitty-gritty needs …..or

* disgust at the Yahapaalana failures, including the manifest failure to heed intel-warnings re the Easter Sunday attacks, …..or

* a combination of the above factors.

****  ****

DEBATES on CHINA

Paul Monk:  “Facing the Chinese Dragon Today: Paul Keating’s Errors,” 23 November 2019, https://thuppahis.com/2019/11/23/facing-the-chinese-dragon-today-paul-keatings-errors/

Peter Koenig: “China’s BRI is Multi-Polar Win-Win Trading Network,” 26 November 2019,  https://thuppahis.com/2019/11/26/chinas-bri-is-a-multi-polar-win-win-trading-network/

Charles Edel: “Assessing Modern China Today,” 26 November 2019, https://thuppahis.com/2019/11/26/assessing-modern-china-today/