The Chinese ambassador Wei Huaxiang and the Sri Lankan Buddhasasana minister Hiniduma Sunil Senevi. Photograph: Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka
China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, Wei Huaxiang, has met the minister whose ministry oversees the spread of Buddhist sites across the Tamil North-East, in the latest of a series of meetings with Sri Lanka’s Buddhist establishment as Beijing deepens its "Buddhist diplomacy" on the island.
Wei called on Hiniduma Sunil Senevi, the minister of Buddhasasana, religious and cultural affairs, on 22 October, according to the Chinese Embassy , which said the two sides held "in-depth discussions on China-Sri Lanka exchanges and cooperations in Buddhism and culture". The embassy’s counsellor for cultural and educational affairs, Ji Lili, also attended.
The meeting followed Wei’s visit to Kandy on 16 October, where he called on the chief prelates of the Asgiriya and Malwatte chapters to discuss Buddhist cultural exchange. The next day he visited a Buddhist school in Kandy, six of whose students are going to China’s Yunnan province on provincial government scholarships .
Wei arrived in Colombo in August pledging to deepen ties. His predecessor, Qi Zhenhong, spoke of a "millennial Buddhist bond" between the two countries, and in 2023 toured Buddhist sites in the North-East whose construction on Tamil land has been contested.
Beijing is one of Sri Lanka’s largest creditors, with projects including the Hambantota port and a planned US$3.7 billion Sinopec refinery , and Chinese military attachés this month visited the Sri Lankan naval dockyard in Trincomalee.
Tamil council members at the gate of the illegal Thaiyiddy vihara, built by the Sri Lankan military on private Tamil land, this month. File photograph
Senevi’s ministry and the Department of Archaeology have been at the centre of the construction of Buddhist sites on Tamil land in the North-East. Senevi told Parliament in April that monuments at Vedukkunaari in Vavuniya, site of a Hindu temple, had been confirmed as Buddhist , and the Archaeology Department has since sought 260 acres around it.
At Kurunthurmalai in Mullaitivu, the department has threatened legal action over Hindu worship , and Tamil landowners at Thaiyiddy, where the military built a vihara on their land, say they have received assurances from Senevi but no return of the land. The government’s decision to involve the Buddhasasana ministry in the Jaffna cultural centre drew outrage in May.
China has consistently shielded Sri Lanka from international accountability for atrocities against Tamils. It voted against the 2021 UN Human Rights Council resolution mandating the collection of evidence of war crimes, called the 2022 resolution a "product of politicisation" , and this year told the council that states "should respect the human rights development path chosen independently" by each country.
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