Can Global South investments develop Sri Lanka?

SINCE Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake was elected in September 2024, he has made four state visits.

- Shiran Illanperuma

First to India, then to China, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Vietnam. This itinerary says a lot about the state of the international economy and debt-saddled Sri Lanka's options within it.

Two of these countries, India and China, were founding members of the BRICS formation in 2009. The UAE officially joined BRICS in 2024, and Vietnam was invited to become a partner country in the same year. These countries are engines of growth in the international economy. Having begun to reshape the international division of labour, they are slowly trying to reshape its institutional super-structure.

The absence of certain countries on Dissanayake's itinerary is also telling there were no G7 countries on the agenda. The US and the European.

Union account for over 50% of Sri Lanka's exports, but protectionism, declining consumer confidence, and a lack of real investments compel Sri Lanka to turn to the South for its development.

Bending with the wind

In 1967, Singaporean President Lee Kuan Yew noted that in many newly independent states, the 'will to resist' often melts in the face of hard power. However, many of these states would also 'bend with the wind like the bamboo... if it looks like the east wind is bending stronger than the west wind, then people start bending that way even before the wind comes'.

Yew was talking about Southeast Asia during the Cold War, but his words could very well apply to countries like Sri Lanka in today's New Cold War. Sri Lanka's current engagement with actors in the Global South is characterised much more by material interests than by the high ideals of the Bandung Spirit. The country's economy remains weak after defaulting on its external debt in 2022.