As Sri Lankan protesters stormed the presidential residence in #Colombo, the Chinese Embassy released no statements and did not tweet. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs offered no comment until Monday afternoon, well behind others such as #India, the European Union, and the United States. The French Embassy even retweeted a tweet comparing the events in #SriLanka to the French #Revolution. Yet the silence from #Beijing that immediately followed the collapse of the Rajapaksa regime (and the word salad from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that finally emerged) should not be confused for a lack of interest. The fall of the Rajapaksa government in Sri Lanka will have considerable long-term implications for Chinese international #politics—if the family doesn’t claw its way back into power.
Members of the Rajapaksa family have held public offices in Sri Lanka for more than half a century. The current generation that includes Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, both of whom have been president, are the grandchildren of Don David #Rajapaksa, who held a powerful colonial post when Sri Lanka was controlled by the British Empire. Their father was a deputy speaker of the Sri Lankan Parliament after the country’s independence. Many other family members have held government positions. The family has nearly cornered political power in Sri Lanka for much of this century, and its power has come with conspicuous #corruption.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/07/13/china-sri-lanka-rajapaksa-family-corruption/ #china #usa #crisis #economy #ccp #japan #russia