China slams US ‘meddling in Sri Lanka internal affairs’
February 12, 2014 08:04 am
China’s
Foreign Minister on Tuesday offered support for Sri Lanka after the United
States said it would table a UN resolution against Colombo over its human
rights record.
“China
opposes some countries’ interference in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka under
the pretext of human rights issues,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Sri
Lankan counterpart G. L. Peiris in Beijing.
China
backs the Sri Lankan government in safeguarding national independence,
sovereignty and territorial integrity, Wang said, according to China’s Foreign
Ministry.
“We
believe in the Sri Lankan people’s wisdom and capacity to handle their own
affairs,” Wang added.
Sri
Lanka this month rejected US criticism of its human rights record as “grossly
disproportionate,” after a senior US official said Washington would table a UN
resolution against the country.
President
Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government, which finally crushed a 26-year rebellion by
ethnic minority Tamil separatists in 2009, has rejected calls for an
international inquiry into atrocities during the civil war.
China
has increasingly tight ties with Sri Lanka, funding airports, roads, railways
and ports, which has unsettled India, traditionally Sri Lanka’s closest
economic partner.
The
island of 21 million people just off India’s southern tip has become a front in
the competition between the Asian giants China and India, Reuters reports.