{"id":393257,"date":"2019-01-18T02:24:51","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T01:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-us-boosts-military-ties-with-sri-lanka\/"},"modified":"2019-01-18T02:24:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-18T01:24:51","slug":"the-us-boosts-military-ties-with-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-us-boosts-military-ties-with-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"The US boosts military ties with Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>The US boosts military ties with Sri Lanka<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Vijith Samarasinghe<br \/>\n    <br \/>17 January 2019<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>Recent visits by US Seventh Fleet vessels to Sri Lanka\u2019s eastern port of Trincomalee make clear that the island nation is rapidly being integrated into Washington\u2019s war preparations against China. The Seventh Fleet, which is headquartered in Japan, is an offensive formation geared for war and includes 60\u201370 ships, 300 aircraft and more than 40,000 combat personnel.<\/p>\n<p>In early December, the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis visited Trincomalee, in eastern Sri Lanka, as part of the Pentagon\u2019s plans to establish a Logistics Hub there for the US Navy. USS Anchorage, another Seventh Fleet vessel, and a unit of Marines visited the port last August to assess the port\u2019s feasibility as a logistics hub.<\/p>\n<p>Trincomalee, which is the world\u2019s second deepest natural harbour, is of great strategic military value in the Indian Ocean. It served as the naval command hub for the British Eastern Fleet during the last years of World War II.<\/p>\n<p> Commenting on USS Stennis\u2019s visit, an unnamed a diplomat in Colombo told the <em>Nikkei Asian Review<\/em> on December 29: \u201cTrinco [Trincomalee] is a logical choice because it is the most important piece of strategic real estate in Sri Lanka. These are signs of new thinking in Washington regarding this part of South Asia, where over the past six years the Chinese presence has become so obvious and widespread.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Washington\u2019s push for a logistics hub at the port comes as the Trump administration is ratcheting up its trade war measures against China. On December 31, Trump signed the \u201cAsia Reassurance Initiative Act,\u201d which aims to broadly strengthen the US strategic position across Asia against China.<\/p>\n<p>The US Navy\u2019s focus on Trincomalee also explains Washington\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2019\/01\/17\/slus-j17.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 The US boosts military ties with Sri Lanka By Vijith Samarasinghe 17 January 2019 Recent visits by US Seventh Fleet vessels to Sri Lanka\u2019s eastern port of Trincomalee make clear that the island nation is rapidly being integrated into Washington\u2019s war preparations against China. The Seventh Fleet, which is headquartered in Japan, is an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-393257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}