China’s ‘soft-power blitzkrieg’ on Sri Lanka’s Tamils rings alarm bells in India

• Beijing’s overtures, conveyed recently by a bare-chested envoy, have stoked India’s fears that part of its ‘strategic backyard’ could become a Chinese military outpost
• Sri Lanka, which has a history of playing off the two rivals, is keen to curry favour with both as it struggles to avoid defaulting on its multibillion-dollar debt pile