China and India Vying for Influence of Sri Lanka
President Xi Jinping of China arrived in the island nation of Sri Lanka today to finalize and approve various economic agreements. He traveled from the Maldives, where he already signed an infrastructure development agreement that was originally set with India, to Sri Lanka to inaugurate the final phase of various infrastructure and energy projects financed by Chinese corporations. This can be understood as China’s attempt at encouraging Sri Lanka to develop a more favorable relationship with China rather than its giant neighbor India. India has traditionally maintained a large cultural, economic, and political influence over Sri Lanka. China, a regional rival of India, is attempting to secure its growth into a global powerhouse by swaying India’s influence on its traditional friends like Sri Lanka. China’s long term goal is to win enough influence over countries to secure access to maritime and naval resources throughout South Asia as well as keep India in check.
This can be modeled as a triad relationship between China, India, and Sri Lanka. China and India have a negative relationship (though the countries are not openly hostile they are regional rivals) while China originally had a negative relationship with Sri Lanka and India a positive one. In other words, the triangle was stable with two nodes being friends and having a common “enemy”, that is, China. Now, China is attempting to turn its relation with Sri Lanka to a positive one. This in turn is likely to lead to India and Sri Lanka’s relationship into a negative as India would not take Sri Lanka’s growing relationship with China fondly. Essentially, a stable triad relationship is going through a change where two edges are changing signs, and thus the stability is maintained.
The article also reports that China “resolutely opposes any move by any country to interfere in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs under any excuse” in reference to Western pressure on Sri Lanka over civilian casualties during its civil war. This can be seen as China reaffirming its positive relationship with Sri Lanka while both countries maintain a negative relationship to Western countries. The two nations share a common “enemy”, the West, and another stable network can be found.
In summary, within politics between nations social network stability ideas can be found. Countries may be “friends” because they share a common “enemy”. A country may attempt to become “friends” with a former “enemy” to increase influence. Interestingly, the ideas behind social network stability (like the lack of stability between three nodes if all the edges are negative) can be applied directly to politics.
This article was found by Dharisha Bastians and Gardiner Harris is found in http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/world/asia/chinese-leader-visits-sri-lanka-chipping-away-at-indias-sway.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0