Welcome focus in foreign relations

Close on the heels of the Seychelles' President's visit to Sri Lanka, the latter is hosting the Maldivian President, even while holding talks with Yasushi Akashi, Japanese special representative, who is no stranger to Sri Lanka. Only a couple of weeks back, Sri Lanka played host to the King of Swaziland, thereby underscoring this country's special concern to expand cooperative ties with the African continent.

All this and more is taking place on the foreign relations front, in the backdrop of some momentous developments which are of great significance for not only Sri Lanka but for the developing world in general. The 16th Non-aligned Heads of State Summit is just round the corner and will be held in Tehran, while come September 7, 2012 and Sri Lanka will be hosting the 58th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference. Thus, Sri Lanka is certainly in the limelight internationally and could consider herself to be in the thick of very beneficial inter-state interactions. This is an astounding rebuff of those who have been singling this country out for criticism on nebulous, ill-founded allegations, locally as well as internationally.

While these developments should be seen as underscoring the confidence a considerable proportion of the international community has in Sri Lanka, they also have to be valued for the insights they offer on currently changing international power configurations. As frequently pointed out, the international power balance is changing in favour of East Asia and the developing world in general and economic clout is playing a considerable role in this shift in power relations between the developing world and the West. It is East and South East Asia, in particular, which are the key economic players in this changed international power structure and it follows naturally that this economic clout translates into political muscle.

Accordingly, in terms of power and influence, things are looking up for the developing world or the South of the global hemisphere and the less powerful of the world community should exploit the pluses in this favourable international situation to the fullest. Accordingly, Sri Lanka is giving her foreign policy the correct orientation by strengthening her ties with the global South, including island states in the Indian Ocean region and the economic 'powerhouses' of Asia, including China, India, Korea and Japan.

The concept of South-South cooperation had fallen into disuse as a result of the majority of developing countries choosing over the past 30 or more years to headily immerse themselves in the 'synergies' of economic liberalization and what has been seen as market-driven growth. This is highly unfortunate because it was most inadvisable of the developing countries or the Third World to drift away from their ideological moorings, such as, Non-alignment and South-South cooperation, which could have paved the way for their empowerment in every conceivable respect. Instead, neo-liberal economic development paradigms, which most of the developing countries opted for, have not brought them any substantial and tangible material benefits worth speaking of.

Therefore, the developing world needs to make some marked changes in its development thinking and one important change in such policy thinking is the strengthening of economic and other linkages among developing countries.

That is, the steady fostering of South-South cooperation and the upcoming NAM Summit would do well to not only resurrect and support this concept but explore the possibilities of practising it in a major way.

Looked at from this perspective, Sri Lanka is doing right by fostering close economic links with the rest of the developing world, irrespective of whether the states are big or small. There are vast and lucrative markets which are opening-up in the Indian Ocean region and beyond and this country's aim should be penetrate them to the benefit of the states involved. Trade, investment and tourism are just three areas of economic importance that are waiting to be tapped on a cooperative basis and the developing world would do well to lose no time in going about this task.

What we in the developing world need is a change in policy outlook and it is high time we revived those ideological underpinnings, such as, NAM and South-South cooperation, which are uniquely Third World in origin.