Retired General Shavendra Silva, the former Sri Lanka Army commander, told the 5th Wanshou Dialogue on Global Security in Beijing that Sri Lanka rejects being drawn into the confrontation between major powers and will continue to pursue a “principled and balanced” diplomacy that safeguards sovereignty.
“Sri Lanka has consistently maintained that its territory should not become an arena for geopolitical rivalry or military confrontation among larger powers,” Silva said in remarks reported by The Island. The country’s focus, he added, was on “strengthening national resilience through economic development, institutional stability, maritime awareness, modern defence capabilities, and agile diplomacy.”
The retired general framed responsibility for global stability as shared but unequal. “Major powers bear a special responsibility to exercise strategic restraint, avoid coercive practices, uphold international law, and contribute toward global stability rather than fragmentation,” he said. Emerging and middle powers, he argued, had “an increasingly important role as bridge builders promoting dialogue, cooperation, and institutional reform.”
Silva, a former Deputy Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York, said modern security challenges now extend well beyond conventional warfare to cyber threats, disinformation, economic coercion, AI weaponisation, climate change and pandemics — all of which carry direct strategic significance for a country located along one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes.
On Sri Lanka’s relationship with the host country, the former commander cited the 1952 Rubber-Rice Pact as the historical baseline and credited the Belt and Road Initiative with contributing to “Sri Lanka’s development, regional connectivity, and post-crisis resilience,” alongside China’s support during the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent economic stabilisation effort.
Silva called for reform of multilateral institutions, “particularly the United Nations system,” to better reflect contemporary realities and the voice of the Global South, and a maritime order grounded in international law.
The Beijing appearance comes amid a wider week of Sri Lankan strategic positioning across capitals. Defence Secretary Sampath Thuyacontha last week told a Moscow conference Sri Lanka backs an Indian Ocean Zone of Peace and earlier reiterated the same line at the Indian Ocean Conference in Colombo — a consistent NPP-government framing of non-alignment that Silva’s Wanshou Dialogue address now extends to Beijing.
Source: The Island.
