On August 11, amid strong protests from the Indian Navy, a Chinese space and satellite tracking ship, the Yuan Wang 5, is sailing towards the port of Hambantota that China has leased in Sri Lanka.
A guided missile destroyer of the Luyang class equipped with a Type 071 Landing Platform Dock (LPD) is also travelling the Indian Ocean on its way to the Chinese base in Djibouti, which is located on the eastern coast of Africa.
The satellite tracker military ship Yuan Wang 5 is permitted to dock at Hambantota from August 11 to August 17 for refuelling, rest, and supplies by the Ranil Wickremesinghe-led government of Sri Lanka. Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, granted China a 99-year lease of the Hambantota Port in 2017.It is believed that the Wickremesinghe administration was pressured into granting permission by Beijing’s envoy to Colombo, who made it plain that refusal would have an adverse effect on bilateral relations. As a result, Sri Lanka was forced to permit the Chinese ship admission into the Hambantota port.
On Thursday, Major General Lanka Amarapala, the Commanding Officer of the 12th Division of the Sri Lankan Army, was met by representatives of the Indian Consulate General in Hambantota. Dipin P. R., the general consul of India in the southern region of Sri Lanka, attended the meeting with Lt. Col. Puneet Sushil, the assistant defence advisor. The Indian Consulate General in the coastal city in the southern province of the Indian Ocean country tweeted that they had met Group Captain Ashoka Koralage, the Commanding Officer of the Sri Lankan Force installation at Weerawila near Hambantota, on Wednesday.
