CHINA-SRI LANKA: XI JINPING'S VISIT
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At the conclusion of Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit (Sept 16-17, 2014) to Sri Lanka, a 25-article Joint Statement emphasising their strategic cooperative partnership. While the statement detailed mainly the economic agreements, Article 12 said "Sri Lanka welcomes and supports the proposal put forward by China to build the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and will actively participate and cooperate in this initiative." Agreeing to further promote investment in the Magampura/ Hambantota Port Project, the two sides also agreed to explore the feasibility of areas for cooperation which would include ocean observation, ecosystem protection, marine and coastal zone management, search for wreckage of Zheng He’s fleets off the Coast of Sri Lanka, maritime security, combating piracy, search and rescue, and navigation security. Article 13 noted the agreement to strengthen defence cooperation, and maintain the momentum of visits between the two defence authorities and military forces at all levels, intensify the cooperation in military training, training of personnel and to cooperate in the areas of defence-related science and technology, exchange of military academics, and provide logistic support. The two sides reaffirmed that terrorism, separatism, extremism pose a serious threat to stability and security of the region and reaffirmed their readiness to work together to combat these three forces within bilateral and multilateral frameworks. Article 18 referred to cooperation in "nuclear science".
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