President Trump in 2017 offered an alternative to China’s Belt and Road (BRI) & invited others to create the QUAD. By 2018 the Indo Pacific region was the topic on the tables in the US. Then France was shown the door but the submarines. In 2020 COVID - 19 affected all. While Trump called it the “Chinese” virus China developed the vaccine to shield & donated millions of doses to poor friends including SL all over the world. That level of generosity wasn’t seen among other leading vaccine manufactures. President Xi allowed WHO & other countries to produce vaccines with Chinese support if necessary disregarding any royalty fees due to China. COVID was an instance which proved that global healthcare systems were powerless after the Tsunami which proved that “No one is in control”. It would have been a different case if the west paid enough attention when BRI scholars identified “Pandemics” as one major reason which can hamper the growth of the BRI in 2017. Fortunately the BRI ultimately became the lifeline for most countries including leading EU members to face the challenge. The latest is “Putin’s war” for the west. It is interesting to see how the western learned society is looking for the imaginary threats & webs.

By 2019 Sri Lankans started following the “Learned Way” & decided to go agriculturally biological over night. It paved way to anarchy. Those who wanted one country & law ended up with lawlessness. So Sri Lankans were basically trying to sink China’s fertilizer ship as if it was the cause. So far no academic analysis has been done on how such behavior affected the country’s image in international fair trading & how it will affect future investment promotion. Was it part of a bigger plan? Sri Lankans may ask Martha or its master if it barks back.

The Munich Security Summit 2023 report will be out for discussion soon. As per the 2022 report, western democracies are having feelings on the ceilings with the present security developments as their leaders were waiting to address the hating ratings. The Buddha encouraged people to turn the search light unto thy selves. Maybe due to that, Sri Lankans don’t pay attention to global trends & the bigger picture. Sri Lankans should know that approval ratings of the US, German, French, Canadian & British political leaders are very low & they would do many things to turn the search lights out of their countries as those populations worry about the world as well. Sri Lankans should protect their economy always & select the historic friends who helped SL for the task. They may entertain western defence delegations but it all should be for a balanced approach to grow the economy.

(Views expressed are personal).