Beijing Review: Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-Sri Lankan diplomatic relations. What activities will be held to celebrate this event and how are preparations going?

Nihal Rodrigo: The most important event we will have is the visit of the president of Sri Lanka to China. We hope that he will be here sometime in February because February 7 is the date on which we established diplomatic relations. He will have a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao and other leaders.

We also have other events planned. One is an economic forum. This will deal with all economic relationships, which involve not only the governments, but also the private sector-companies and banks.

At that forum, we also hope to have discussions on promoting tourism as well as encouraging investment from China to Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, our president will present a large stone Buddha statue to Lingguang Temple in Beijing.

Sri Lanka's gems are popular in China. You know Zheng He [the famous Ming Dynasty navigator and explorer] came to Sri Lanka several hundred years ago. One of the things he took back to China was Sri Lankan gems. He also brought Chinese silk to Sri Lanka. We hope to have an event to promote our jewelry exports to China.

We will also hold two film festivals, one in Sri Lanka and one in China. During the festivals, Chinese films will be shown in Sri Lanka and Sri Lankan films will be screened in China. We will also have exchanges of cultural and dance troupes between our two countries.

There is another interesting activity that I want to mention. Sri Lanka will donate a small baby elephant to the Beijing Zoo.

You just mentioned the film festivals. How are the preparations for the festivals going?

The preparations are in process. Chinese films are very popular in Sri Lanka; most of them are available in DVD form. Chinese film directors like Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou are very popular in Sri Lanka. We also have [Chinese] film star Xu Jinglei as the Honorary Ambassador of Sri Lanka. Her films are not shown in our cinemas, but we have DVDs. So, we have had some preliminary discussions with the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television of China about the festivals. We are also sending some Sri Lankan films to China. They will look at them and work out some plans.

Xu is a popular actress and film director in China. How did she become the ambassador of Sri Lankan tourism?

During the [2004] tsunami, Xu visited Sri Lanka because she was going to make some films there. She was very touched by what was going on.

After she came back to China, I had a meeting with her and she said she would like to help Sri Lanka, especially the southern part, which was affected by the tsunami. I asked whether she could be the informal ambassador for Sri Lankan tourism and she agreed and said she would do it for free.

She took some pictures on the beaches. At that time, the beaches were improving. She also shot some film on these beaches to show that it was safe to go back there.

Now, I think Xu is in Europe where she is serving on a Film Festival Jury. She plans to make some movies about Sri Lanka and we are very happy about that because few films have been made there. Sri Lanka is a small country, only twice the size of China's Hainan Island. But, we have beaches, jungles, mountains and heritage sites. I think a film made in Sri Lanka will be very interesting.

Meanwhile, her blog has the largest number of hits in China.

The 50th anniversary celebrations will boost Chinese tourists' interest in visiting Sri Lanka. What measures will the Sri Lankan Government take to attract more Chinese tourists?

One of the important parts is the airlines. Sri Lankan Airlines currently have three flights to Beijing per week and we are hoping to extend our flights to Shanghai.

We have also signed an agreement with the China National Tourism Authority to make Sri Lanka more accessible to Chinese visitors. For example, we have signed an agreement to set up a Confucius Institute for people who would like to learn the Chinese language. Our hotels also offer more Chinese food.

Many Chinese visitors go to Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka. We are linking up with India, so that India and Sri Lanka can be a tourism region for more Chinese. All these things are working quite well. From January to October 2005, we had 7,000 Chinese tourists, while a total of 15,000 people came to Sri Lanka during the same period this year.

Sri Lanka is primarily a Buddhist country. Early this year, the first World Buddhist Forum was held in China's Zhejiang Province. What do you think of the exchanges on Buddhism between our two countries?

In ancient times, all the links we had with China involved Buddhism. A Chinese monk, Faxian, went to Sri Lanka more than 1,000 years ago. He spent two years in the temples in Sri Lanka and transcribed all the Buddhist scriptures and brought them back to China.

In recent years, we have had exchanges of Buddhist delegations and we have good relations with the Buddhism Association of China. We also sent a large delegation to the first World Buddhist Forum. Before that, we had many discussions with the Buddhist Association.

I have been to many Chinese temples like Famen Temple, Lingguang Temple and Shaolin Temple which is also known for kungfu. I was happy to see many younger people at those temples now.

Meanwhile, some philosophies of Buddhism are very important, dealing with discussions about nonviolence. It is a very important thing. Meanwhile, we have what we call Buddhist compassion, which means your feelings of sympathy to other people around you. The third thing is the right thinking. It can help you have a clear calm rational understanding of things rather than rushing into hasty decisions. These three sectors can be applied to relations between friends, between countries.

I am glad that Buddhism is being developed in China. This is one of the reason why Sri lanka is gifting a replica of a famous Buddhist statue from Sri Lanka to the Lingguang temple. We hope that some Buddhist monks will also be able to accompany the statue.

Will the conflict between the Sri Lankan Government and the Tamil Tiger rebels affect Sri Lanka's tourism industry? What measures will the government take to protect the security of tourists?

Well, at certain times it has affected tourism. You know the conflict is mainly in the northeastern parts of the island, and the Sri Lankan tourism authority says it is not safe to go there.

There were some incidents in Colombo, which soon were stopped, and happily no tourist was attacked or hurt. We have told foreign tourists, including Chinese, what places they should not visit.

What is the current situation regarding the conflict?

November 27 is the birthday of the leader of the Tamil Tigers, Velupillai Prabhakaran. He makes a statement of policy every year on his birthday. The statement this year gave no real indication that he had given up his desire to establish a separatist mono-ethnic state in the north of Sri Lanka through violent means. Of course, he claimed that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Eelam) "preferred a peaceful approach to win political rights." He is not really representative of the Tamil community he claims to represent. Even his own group-the LTTE-has broken up.

I feel we should continue with efforts for serious negotiations with all communities in Sri Lanka whatever the attitude and actions of the LTTE. There are good signs. First, the vast majority of the people of all communities, Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, desire peace. Second, the governing party, which is the party of President Mahinda Rajapakse, who is coming here next year, and the opposition party, under former Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe, who came here in 2003, have reached an agreement on how to proceed to establish peace. In fact all political parties are involved in the discussions. Only the LTTE has not joined in.

I believe that the vast majority of the Tamil people wish to have peaceful negotiations. In fact most of the Tamils live in peace and friendship with other communities in Sri Lanka. I believe that the terrorism of the LTTE has no future. Those who desire peace will eventually have their way. The government is firm in its efforts to resume serious negotiations with the LTTE, which is free to join the rest of the country in the peace process. However, when the LTTE by its violent actions harms people in the country, the government will respond militarily, to safeguard our citizens. No government can tolerate terrorism-certainly not when there are peaceful options available.