Life is good on the paradise island of Sri Lanka – unless you happen to be a journalist, a human rights campaigner or a member of the Tamil ethnic minority in Sri Lanka.

More than a year after a bloody offensive defeated the Tamil Tigers, Sri Lanka remains mired in allegations of prisoner abuse, government-orchestrated disappearances and attacks on the press. A recent article in The Guardian excoriated the global media’s lack of attention on Sri Lanka, saying:

“The end of the war has changed nothing. Phones are tapped. Emails hacked. Media outlets harassed and journalists threatened….. And they are not the only ones who live in fear. NGO workers, lawyers, members of the opposition – the culture of impunity puts them all at risk.”

The government has taken an openly defiant attitude to any international criticism of domestic policy. Despite reports of thousands of civilian casualties during the 2009 conflict, the Sri Lankan president declared, somewhat surprisingly given the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, that “not even a single civilian was killed.” Last week government-supported protestors demanded an end to a UN investigation into alleged war time abuses, forcing the UN to close an office in the country. The government also refused to commit to a key EU provision on human rights for obtaining preferential treatment on exports to the EU – a position that cost them more than 1 billion Euros.

The country’s new found confidence and contempt for the Western world is not without reason.

Similar to Myanmar, Sri Lanka now finds itself being aggressively courted by two Asian giants, no questions asked. Both China and India are competing to exert influence over the tiny island, strategically important because of its location. For China, Sri Lanka is part of its “string of pearls” strategy, an effort to build a series of ports and airfields and develop special diplomatic relationships  in countries across the Indian Ocean. For India, it is important simply to ensure that Sri Lanka doesn’t completely flip over to the Chinese.

It is all a part of this century’s Great Game, as both countries battle for power, hegemony and resources.

For now, the Chinese are far ahead**. To India’s west, China continues to deepen ties with Pakistan, from conducting joint naval exercises to building deep water ports and nuclear reactors in the country. Similarly, in the east, China is increasing military ties and building a deep water port entry in Bangladesh. In Myanmar, whose authoritarian regime is sustained by military assistance from Beijing, “the Chinese are constructing commercial and naval bases and building roads, waterways, and pipelines.” To the South, China has tremendously increased its support to Sri Lanka. The war against the Tamil Tigers was practically bankrolled by the Chinese. It has replaced Japan as Sri Lanka’s biggest aid donor, financing infrastructure projects, rebuilding roads and constructing a sea port.

To put it simply, China’s strategy for the great game is to encircle India.

This strategy of encirclement has put New Delhi on edge. While not much can be done with Pakistan, India has stepped up its game in Bangladesh,  Sri Lanka and Myanmar. The Sri Lankan president was recently in New Delhi to sign a series of economic and diplomatic deals with India. India is helping with reconstruction efforts in the war-torn north. New Delhi has also expanded its military and economic ties with Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Unlike China though, the world’s largest democracy is less at ease justifying its support for these countries despite their poor human rights record. The country was widely criticized for ignoring the violent anti-junta protests in 2007. Similarly, India was strangely silent during the final stages of Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil Tigers. Human rights groups accused New Delhi of being complicit in the deaths of 200,000 civilians because of the support it provided the Sri Lankan army. It raised the ire of many Indian Tamilians when it joined China and Russia to block a proposal for a war crimes inquiry into the conflict at the UN Human Rights Council.

As India and China battle it out, there seems little doubt that human rights will now take a back seat in South Asia. China has shown a penchant for supporting some of the most unsupportable regimes in the world, from Sudan to North Korea and Burma. New Delhi cannot compete with Beijing without getting its hands dirty.

In 2008, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretary told The New York Times that “Asians don’t go around teaching each other how to behave. There are ways we deal with each other – perhaps a quiet word, but not wagging the finger.”

Very soon, even that quiet word may be a little too inconvenient.

** For more on the Sino-Indian Great Game, read David Scott, “The Great Power ‘Great Game’ between India and China: ‘The Logic of Geography,” Geopolitics, 2008 and Robert Kaplan, “Center Stage for the Twenty-first Century -Power Plays in the Indian Ocean,” Foreign Affairs, 2009