As prime minister, Kotelawala led Sri Lanka into the United Nations and contributed to Sri Lanka's expanding foreign relations, particularly with other Asian countries.
In 1955 he led his country's delegation to the Bandung conference in Indonesia where his performance earned him the epithet Bandung Booruwa (Bandung Donkey) in Sri Lanka, for his lack of knowledge of the presence of the US 7th Fleet in the South China Sea, and his inability to pronounce "Formosan".
His uncontroversial first speech at the conference was written by journalists at the Lake House group,  However, he had been influenced by the British Government, as well as by his US-aligned permanent secretary Gunasena de Soyza to make anti-Communist remarks.
He made these remarks at a press conference, but subsequently withdrew them.
He confessed later in Parliament that he had only made these remarks because he was pressured by de Soyza.
 At the conference he stated his belief that fashionably Marxist anti-colonialist rhetoric ignored Communist atrocities.
In a private conversation with the prime ministers of Pakistan, India, Burma, and China, he asked Chinese premier Zhou Enlai if he wanted to bring Communism to Tibet.
Zhou replied that it was impractical and undesirable, and that the PRC had gone to Tibet because it was "an integral part of the Chinese state" and because it had been threatened by "imperialist intrigues" from the British and Russian empires.
As prime minister, Kotelawala led Sri Lanka into the United Nations and contributed to Sri Lanka's expanding foreign relations, particularly with other Asian countries. In 1955 he led his country's delegation to the Bandung conference in Indonesia where his performance earned him the epithet Bandung Booruwa (Bandung Donkey) in Sri Lanka, for his lack of knowledge of the presence of the US 7th Fleet in the South China Sea, and his inability to pronounce "Formosan". His uncontroversial first speech at the conference was written by journalists at the Lake House group,  However, he had been influenced by the British Government, as well as by his US-aligned permanent secretary Gunasena de Soyza to make anti-Communist remarks. He made these remarks at a press conference, but subsequently withdrew them. He confessed later in Parliament that he had only made these remarks because he was pressured by de Soyza.  At the conference he stated his belief that fashionably Marxist anti-colonialist rhetoric ignored Communist atrocities. In a private conversation with the prime ministers of Pakistan, India, Burma, and China, he asked Chinese premier Zhou Enlai if he wanted to bring Communism to Tibet. Zhou replied that it was impractical and undesirable, and that the PRC had gone to Tibet because it was "an integral part of the Chinese state" and because it had been threatened by "imperialist intrigues" from the British and Russian empires.
John Kotelawala