By Days after the island’s neighbor allowed docking of the Chinese research vessel Shi Yan 6 at Colombo port despite India’s concerns, Indian Navy chief Admiral R. Hari Kumar met Sri Lanka’s Vice Admiral Priyantha Perera and discussed modalities of increasing maritime cooperation.
The meeting between the two took place on the sidelines of Goa Maritime Conclave 2023, where both “discussed modalities for increasing maritime cooperation in the field of hydrography, training, capability enhancement, and progress of various capacity building projects,” the Indian Navy posted on X. Defense analysts suspect China has been using dual-use’research ships’ to spy in the Indian Ocean Region, where India also has its strategic assets and interests.
Most likely, Sri Lanka will have more combined activities with the Indian Navy to demonstrate that it is committed to balancing Chinese influence in the Indian
