Columns

So Mike Pompeo has come and gone. For which we give thanks to whoever it was that facilitated this quick exit. The problem with some leaders of major powers is not just their pomp and arrogance. It is also their growing readiness to bring their geopolitical battles to the soil of other countries which are reluctant to play seconds to the fighters in the ring.

Right now it might sound like diplomatic fisticuffs as China and the United States engage in troubling verbal rhetoric at a time when the world is busy engaged in battling something more dangerous than two powerful nations exposing their fangs. This is hardly the time or the politico-economic environment for Colombo to enter the ring. It has enough trouble of its own.

Sure, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will throw a few punches to show that he means what he has been saying about defending the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. So it was not only a message to Pompeo. It was one for his supporters and opponents at home and to any others in the neighbourhood with their ears wide open.

For reasons one would not want to speculate in case it ruptures the spleen of some angry admiral who is all at sea. It was also for all those Lefties and even more vociferous loud-mouthed politicians that lie flat on comfy mattresses in some shady places where the sun does not shine and the rain does not fall the public would surely wonder at their recent deadly silence without fasting unto death.

Where were they when the heavyweight American diplomat Mike Pompeo flew into Colombo and laid into the Chinese there without even sipping a noodle soup. “Predators,” yelled (well not exactly) –the Californian Pompeo preparing to charge into the China shop at Bauddhaloka Mawatha  after arriving from New Delhi well-fed on Mr Modi’s chapathi.

Not many moons ago there was this well-coiffed Marxist (so he tells us) politician with neatly trimmed beard which must cost him a packet for regular trim and shave — but then what is a packet to him, a party leader and a minister in yet another cabinet.

Anyway there he was fasting unto death or something opposite the United Nations Office in Colombo over some critical reports on Sri Lanka presented by UN officials that were denounced no end in Colombo as one-sided and largely inaccurate.

But well before anything untoward happened to the patriotic politician, the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa visited the fasting politico and handed him a glass of water or orange juice or some magic potion that revived him, for the man seems to have departed home as there were no media pictures of him later at the scene.

At the time I was thinking how empty our country would be if our patriot took this way out of existence. Who would be left to cry foul and show our ultra patriotic ardour by exiting without savouring a Dr Publis curry.

But then Publis had enough turmeric for his regular use without having to beg for a hunduwa or two from the friendly owner of the allapu kade or wait under a coconut tree till a couple of nuts fell and were readied for measurement and sale.

At least an apple falling on the Newtonian dome produced a scientific discovery or two. But a coconut falling off a tree would cost a hundred rupees or more in the black market.

That brings me to the visiting Mr Pompeo and the strangely missing patriots parading the streets or occupying some cosy corner until the Ugly American disappeared into the neighbouring Maldivian waters and talk the Maldivians into sharing  a little Maldive fish and renting an atoll to park their aircraft like the British did on Gan Island.

After all dear Boris can give a little helping hand to the Trumpeter as Johnson’s predecessors did by chasing away the Chagossian people from their homes in Diego Garcia and handing over the islands for an American airbase that is still used for aircraft bombing those the US does not like.

Well, not always bombing their enemies. They sometimes do drop a few bombs on their friends too, especially on journalists of friendly countries and claim it was friendly fire or pass it off as collateral damage.

Some call this neutrality — killing friend and foe. This is like the equidistance that Sri Lanka might like to keep as it steps deeper into its new foreign policy formulation. But that to another time when some foreign affairs pundit clearly defines for us poor souls all this neutrality business and untangle the foreign policy strands when things get out of hand.

In the meantime, we will sit by the ring side and wait for two contending big powers and watch them slug each other. It would be better, of course, if the two stay in their own patch somewhere in the South China Sea or farther away in the Pacific and let us look after our coconuts which came floating from the Pacific into the Indian Ocean to begin with.

But if we are insistent on playing neutral why, we can always organise a martial arts contest at the Mattala Stadium and engage in their diplomatic judo. At the moment the language used by the US and China to throw some linguistic grenades at each other is called diplomacy. It is in American English and Chinese English which in the earlier days of Nixonian detente were learnt by Chinese academics and students in the US. Now more and more Americans come to China to learn Putonghua.

Between the two, the Queen’s English is forgotten because the Americans cannot spell it and the Chinese cannot pronounce it and Beijing wants to know what is meant by Royalty.

So for the moment the two sides are circling each other trying to spread their verbal virus around hoping that one of them will collapse under China’s communist dogmatism or Trump’s White House nationalism.

Right now most support the Chinese-secretly of course — because Xi Jinping has the money. And if he runs out as he goes distributing it to every pradeshiya sabha in the whole corona-stricken world why he just walks into the closest noodle factory and orders some renminbi. But Trump cannot do that. He cannot spell renminbi and he won’t touch the bloody stuff because he thinks Xi has dabbed it with corona before putting it in bags and dropping the lot in Pearl Harbour to teach both the Americans and Japanese a lesson.

In the meantime, Trump and the Chinese are exchanging insults in Twitter. Trump is ahead in the game because uncouth language in early morning tweets comes easily to Trump. The Chinese are only now learning the art of doing so. So now they have planted a Counsellor (Twitter) at the Chinese embassy in Colombo to dash off anti-American tweets on behalf of their friend in Colombo while our foreign ministry sits in its posterior playing neutral with a little bit of tilt to Beijing. The latest news feeds out of New York say Pompeo has sent a very urgent your-eyes-only tweet to Trump while they are counting the hora votes printed and ordered from China under a new trade deal, asking for a top state Department diplomat to be posted at the US Embassy in Colombo to counter the Chinese tweets.

Since the two diplomatic missions are not too far away, the embassies are already planning for two twitteratis to steal each other’s incomplete works for post-haste dispatch to their respective spy chiefs at home. Pompeo knows how to do it. He was head of CIA not for nothing!

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor, Diplomatic Editor and Political Columnist of the Hong Kong Standard before moving to London where he worked for Gemini News Service. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London before returning to journalism.)