China has emerged as one of the important factors in India-Sri Lanka relations. It is important to contextualise this intervening variable, before going into various aspects of China’s footprints in Sri Lanka and their impact on India-Sri Lanka relations. To Mohan Malik, China’s strategy towards India have three elements: encirclement, envelopment and entanglement. ‘Encirclement’ is a kind of “strengthened Chinese strategic presence [encircling India] in Tibet, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma and in the Indian Ocean island states.” ‘Envelopment’ is essentially “integrating all of India’s neighbours into the Chinese economy.” And ‘Entanglement’ is “exploiting India’s domestic contradictions and multiple security concerns. For India, the above three elements of Chinese strategy directly translate to strategic, economic and internal security concerns respectively.