Relational Resilience in the Shadow of Failure: The Sino–Sri Lankan Hambantota Paradox

The Sino-Sri Lankan relationship has managed to prove resilient even during great disruption in the 21st century. The failure of the Hambantota port and its subsequent lease should have been disruptive, producing domestic discontent to China that then would have led to a defection to a rivaling power. Instead, the relationship became even stronger. The traditional theories did not produce satisfying answers so instead a novel combination of Relational theory was used together with complex systems theory and critical realism to focus on the spaces between and escape state-centric and linear models for non-linearity, open systems and feedback loops. The research combines social network analysis and historical narrative analysis to analyze the trajectories and critical junctions. The historical narrative analysis used four levels of interaction: individual, endogenous, interstate, and exogenous to analyze the use of competing narratives of “dragon savior” and “friendship with all” and how they coexist in a feedback loop of interactions. In the network analysis it was revealed that Sri Lanka was in a peripheral position but had good leverage over China due to its frequent contact with other core states. In the historical narrative analysis, it is revealed that Sri Lanka had economic vulnerabilities and embedded patronage sustained in the relational flows between the levels of interaction. But together with narrative construction it retained agency while still being in a dependent position vis a vis China. Causal mechanisms of domestic development needs, patronage politics, weak economic alternatives, network leverage, and normative pressures sustained a resilient feedback loop in the relationship was revealed during the critical junction of 2015. This period revealed that the political leadership in Sri Lanka had agency but chose to continue its narratives after a short break, revealing these structural constraints. This thesis revealed that both structures and agency coexist but constrain and enabled actions which managed to in this instance to keep the relationship resilient despite being on the edge of chaos.