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Asia-Pacific

Modi’s Asia-Pacific Push

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India’s Role in the Asia-Pacific Topic Week

By Vivek Mishra

The Modi government’s strongly maritime oriented foreign policy launched in 2014 has proven somewhat rewarding, particularly in helping the Indian Navy transcend its image of a force that punches below its weight. The politico-strategic recalibration by India in its Asia-Pacific policy has sought to retool its mid-1990s Look East policy with more purpose. The Act East Policy announced in November 2014 intends to counterweigh its desire to improve relations with ASEAN countries on one hand and increase India’s strategic regional footprints in the Asia-Pacific on the other.

India’s new Asia-Pacific policy has been the result of its ever increasing economic, political, and military stakes in the region. It was a rare moment in this regard when India became a Full Dialogue Partner of ASEAN in 1995 and a member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1996. India’s Asia-Pacific push further manifested in 2010 when the India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AIFTA) came into effect in January 2010 with regard to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. The economic component of India’s Asia-Pacific policy is pivoted around India-ASEAN trade which reached stood at $76.52 billion in 2014 and is expected to cross $100 billion in the future.

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi with other leaders in the family photo during the 13th ASEAN-India Summit, in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia on November 21, 2015.
The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi with other leaders in the family photo during the 13th ASEAN-India Summit, in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia on November 21, 2015.

Modi and the Asia-Pacific

Prime Minister Modi’s Act East policy, launched within months of his assuming office in May 2014, was an effort to coalesce India’s economic goals with its strategic determinations in the Asia-Pacific. In this regard, India expected to leverage its partnerships not just with the countries of Southeast Asia but Japan, Australia, and the US in advancing its evolving interests in the Asia-Pacific region. One of such evolutionary interests has been India’s changed stance on the South China Sea (SCS); transitioning from a combination of indifference and apprehension to clarity. This was put across by none other than Prime Minister Modi himself at the ASEAN-India Summit in November 2015 when he brought up the disputes in the SCS and conveyed India’s expectations on the implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the SCS. By evoking the Code of Conduct in the Asia-Pacific Maritime domain Modi also depicted India’s resonance with other countries sharing its apprehensions in the region like the US, Philippines, Vietnam and Japan.

These policy enunciations by India were buttressed by actions that sought to advance its interests in the Asia-Pacific region. Within six months of coming to power the Modi government offered a $300 million credit line to Vietnam for trade diversification. The trade diversification grant was also understood as India’s push for diminishing Vietnam’s trade dependence on China and a simultaneous increase in the country’s expenditure in India’s flagship Make in India initiative. The line of credit complimented an earlier credit of $100 million in the preceding month to help Vietnam in defense procurement and the modernization of its armed forces, including submarine training. This investment was specifically directed towards procurement of four offshore patrol vessels that are anticipated to patrol Vietnam’s littoral besides the Indo-Pacific.

The Union Minister for Defence, Shri Manohar Parrikar and the Minister of National Defence of Vietnam, General Phung Quang Thanh signing a joint vision statement on Defence Cooperation in Progress, in New Delhi on May 26, 2015.
The Union Minister for Defence, Shri Manohar Parrikar and the Minister of National Defence of Vietnam, General Phung Quang Thanh signing a joint vision statement on Defence Cooperation in Progress, in New Delhi on May 26, 2015.

India’s increased focus on the Indo-Pacific has also been a result of its recent policy tweaks. Its increasing cooperation with countries of Southeast Asia, Japan Australia, and the US in this region stands as testimony of the same. The Indian Prime Minister’s personal connection with the Japanese leader is often synonymous with a unified Asian nationalism symbolised by the ethos of a common “world of Narendra Abe.” While the two leaders’ connection lends currency to the possibility of India’s increased role in the Asia-Pacific, it also feeds of the potential of an anti-China coalition in Asia. Japan has been included in the annual MALABAR series of naval exercises as a permanent member despite Chinese oppositions. The focus of 2015 trilateral MALABAR exercise; destroying hostile submarines, surface warships and aircraft, caused significant angst in Beijing. The strategic rivalry in the maritime domain is a reality between India and China. Even as India continues to push for strong and better relations with the countries of the Asia-Pacific, such pursuits cannot be detached from an anti-China criticism. For instance, the anti-submarine focus of the AUSINDEX 15 exercise was seen as a developing response by both India and Australia to China’s submarine deployments in the Indian Ocean.

The year 2015 was also crucial for India’s Asia-Pacific policy as an important break came in India-Australia strategic cooperation. India and Australia conducted their first bilateral naval exercise, the aforementioned AUSINDEX 15, focused on anti-submarine warfare. While Australia sent its Lockheed Martin P-3 anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft, India employed its Boeing P-8 long-range anti-submarine aircraft. Besides building on the Framework for Security Co-operation announced by the Australian and Indian Prime Ministers in 2014, AUSINDEX showed a bilateral willingness to deepening defense cooperation in the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific. The desire to attain better navy-to-navy relations and to attain a high level of interoperability between the two navies suggests an interest mutual cooperation between the two countries in the Indian Ocean, Indo-Pacific and the larger Asia-Pacific region.

Ausindex_14
Rear Admiral Jonathan Mead, Head Navy Capability Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Rear Admiral AB Singh, Flag Officer Commanding Eastern Fleet along with Commanding Officers participating ships and submarine of HMAS Sirius, HMAS Arunta, HMAS Sheean, INS Shivalik, INS Ranvijay and INS Shakti during AUSINDEX-15. Source: Indian Navy

Besides partnerships with some of the bigger countries in the Asia-Pacific, India has also focused on smaller countries. Brunei, a small but crucial country locked in territorial dispute with China, figured in India’s latest Asia-Pacific calculus. The Modi government’s outreach to the small nation resulted in some important agreements between the two nations. Both the countries signed a defense MoU that includes four major areas: exchange of visits at different levels; exchange of experience, information, and training; conduct of joint military exercises, seminars and discussions; and cooperation between defense industries. Especially, naval ship visits from each country and training of armed forces were steps aimed at expanding India’s strategic footprints in the Asia-Pacific.

India’s Cooperation with the US in the Asia-Pacific

India’s Asia-Pacific policy is hinged on its policies in the Indian Ocean and importantly, on its concerns with policies in the overlapping maritime region, the Indo-Pacific. India’s increasing focus on the Indo-Pacific together with its recalibrated Indian Ocean focus has given credence to the thought that India might be actively considering expanding its patrols in the Asia-Pacific region. Recent speculations about Indo-US joint patrols in the SCS, although debunked, constitutes a possible reality in the pipeline. This exercise, however realistic an assumption, is most likely to be a joint exercise with other countries. Most notably, this prospect is associated with the “U.S.-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean Region” signed during President Obama’s visit to India January 2015. The document, in highlighting common grounds for the countries on issues of freedom in navigation and overflight vis-a-vis the South China Sea, was a first in the direction of fostering cooperation between the world’s oldest and largest democracies in the Asia-Pacific maritime domain. This sentiment was reiterated by both the countries in the latest joint statement between the US Defense Secretary, Ashton Carter and India’s Defense Minister, Manohar Parrikar. Ashton Carter’s three day visit was an effort toward materializing the possibility of increasing India’s Asia-Pacific role. Interestingly, this visit was preceded by an assertion in New Delhi by Adm. Harry B. Harris, Jr, chief of the Pacific Command, that called for both the US and India to be “ambitious together.” He also pointed out the Indo-Pacific as the strategic intersection of India’s Act East policy and the US’ rebalance strategy.

Even as the US continues to push for a strong relationship with India in the defense sector, many of the implications of the bilateral relationship are being played out in the maritime domain. The waning sheen of the US’ rebalance strategy has forced the US to think of alternative ideas to prop up the rebalance’s ability in shaping the future geostrategy of the Asia-Pacific. The Indo-Pacific and the Indian Ocean have emerged as the south-west leg of  the US’ rebalance strategy to manage China, amidst an environment that is being increasingly characterized by a diminishing mutuality in relations between the US and its non-NATO alliance partners in the Asia-Pacific.

India’s Mandate for the Asia-Pacific

As India evolves as a regional power and a global economy, there is a commensurate change in its role. India is now willing to don the role of a net security provider in the Indian Ocean and the Asia-Pacific region. India’s anticipated role in the Asia-Pacific derives its political and ethical mandate from a need to ensure freedom of navigation in the region, even as an unprecedented rise in trade transit through the Indian Ocean and the Indo-Pacific is taking place. Between 1992 and 2012, the average number of ships in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea jumped by over 300 per cent. Non traditional threats in the region like terrorism and piracy significantly factor in that assessment. The other reason is the imminent threat that emerges from the possibility of maritime area denial by China, especially in the Strait of Malacca. Albeit easily deniable, a somewhat less openly talked reason is New Delhi’s increasing ability to respond to Beijing’s access to the Indian Ocean, at least in posturing if not otherwise.

This idea of commensurate maritime state response from India is intrinsically linked to the Great Game that is being played in the Asian maritime theatre between the US, India, Japan, Australia, and China. The Asia-Pacific region figures crucially by a natural extension of India’s Great Game.

Vivek Mishra is a Fulbright visiting scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, from August 2015 through May 2016. Originally from India, he is a PhD candidate in Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Vivek is writing his PhD thesis on “American Maritime Strategy in the Indian Ocean in the Post-Cold War Era, 1990-2012.” Specifically, his research involves analyzing the evolution of the US naval presence in the Indian Ocean; the American strategy in the Indian Ocean in the Post-Cold War Era; the US naval relations with key regional navies like India, China, Australia and Pakistan; and the role of the US in tackling non-traditional security threats like piracy and terrorism. 

Featured Image: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Evaristo Sa/Getty Images)

Asia-Pacific

India in the Asia-Pacific: Roles as a ‘Balancer’ and Net Security Provider

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India’s Role in the Asia-Pacific Topic Week

By Ajaya Kumar Das

Since becoming the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi has swiftly reached out to India’s smaller neighbors and, more boldly, to Pakistan. He has turned India’s vision from “Look East” to “Act East.” Modi has wooed large investments from China while simultaneously deepening its partnership with the US.

In this photograph released by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) on September 30, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi (centre L) walks with US President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, DC, on September 29, 2014.
In this photograph released by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) on September 30, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi (centre L) walks with US President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington, DC, on September 29, 2014.

While not disregarding other key bilateral partnerships, he has taken India-Japan relations to a new level. He asked his diplomats to “shed old mindsets” and position India as “a leading role, rather than just a balancing force globally.” In articulating foreign policy for a leading power, India prefers to see a multi-polar Asia as well as a multi-polar world and expresses desire “to shoulder greater global responsibilities.” While under-performing in economics, Modi has surprisingly been most successful in pursuing a ‘positive’ foreign policy. This has attracted the strategic community in India and beyond to analyze prospects and limits of a potential leading or great power role for the nation. While India’s ascendance to great power status will take time, owing to domestic constraints, how India positions itself in the Indo-Pacific balance of power and rises as a ‘net security provider’ will contribute significantly to its security and status.

India as a ‘Swing State’

India, in its struggle for self-preservation and power, adopted balance of power policies in the mid-1950s, foreseeing conflict with China by courting the Soviet Union and pursuing non-alignment between the two Cold War superpowers on the foundation of weak hard power. After a brief period of alignment with the US following the 1962 border war with China, India became closer to the Soviet Union in the 1970s, following the rapprochement between China and the US. Indian nuclear tests in May of 1998 were to preserve Asian equilibrium challenged by the rise of China, thereby ensuring its future as an independent great power. Balancing China has become a sine qua non of India’s own power and status.

The extant border dispute, power asymmetry, proximity, simultaneous rise and perceived strategic encirclement of India all factor in India’s geopolitical approach to China. While its great power ambition has driven India to forge partnerships with like-minded states and regional ties with Southeast Asian nations, such policies also contribute positively to an Asian balance of power. The deepening mutual strategic relationship between India, the US, and Japan is primarily driven by the objective to preserve and augment their respective relative power and the shared goal of preventing Chinese hegemony in Indo-Pacific. According to one analysis, the combined share of global product in 2050 between the three democracies exceeds that of China with a much higher margin. Therefore, India’s role is critical for an Asia-Pacific balance. According to such projections, India, while becoming a major independent power in 2050, will be the ‘weakest’ among other major powers and thus remaining essentially a balancing power (or swing state).

India’s partnership with the United States is seen as an important element in India’s strategy to balance China. While pushing defense cooperation with the US, India has agreed to Japan’s participation in the Malabar exercise “on a regular basis,” and has raised the trilateral diplomatic discussion with them to the ministerial level. It held the first ever trilateral dialogue with Japan and Australia in 2015. There is a renewal of interest among all four countries to revive the ‘quadrilateral dialogue’ and partnership, which emerged in 2007 and disappeared after the 2007 ‘Malabar’ multilateral naval exercise after Chinese protests.

While both parties share concerns about the relative power of China and have signed a “joint strategic vision” for Asia, the US focuses more on South China Sea and India on Indian Ocean. India has rejected a US call for joint patrols in the South China Sea, which is its ‘secondary’ area of maritime interest. It knows that it can presently contribute very little militarily to the competition in the South China Sea. Therefore, some in India see logic in signing foundational defense agreements, including the logistics support agreement, to effectively partner with the US to face future Chinese challenges in the Indian Ocean. The trigger for much closer defense and security cooperation with the US would come from India’s perception of a Chinese threat on the Himalayan border and in the Indian Ocean. While the relationship with the US is an important element in India’s balance of power policies, the nation is also forging strategic relationship with other key powers in the region, such as Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore.

Balancing does not mean containment of China. Therefore, India has simultaneously engaged China at various levels, being careful not to discard officially its traditional nonaligned policy. If India has trilateral dialogues with the US, Japan, and Australia, it also similarly engages China and Russia trilaterally. To raise its material capabilities, India sees opportunity in a rising China, and thus pursues enhanced trade and investment relations with it like others. To become a more effective balancer, India also needs to enhance close economic relations with the US and Japan and join the emerging regional trading blocs in the Asia-Pacific.

India as a Net Security Provider

If India is to become a great power, it has to become a ‘net security provider’ in the Indo-Pacific, thereby enhancing its soft power and legitimacy.

The Indian Navy conducting counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden
The Indian Navy conducting counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.

With great power comes expectations for contributing to international peace, security, and order. Instead of being a free-rider, Indian leadership now approves of India becoming a ‘net security provider’ in the Indo-Pacific. India’s revised maritime strategy of 2015 talks of such provision in the Indo-Pacific, including “deployments for anti-piracy, maritime security, NEO [non-combatant evacuation operation] and HADR [humanitarian assistance and disaster relief] operations.”

In joining the forces of the US, Japan, and Australia to engage in humanitarian and disaster relief operations after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, India gained credibility as a security provider and partner in the Indo-Pacific region. It has unilaterally combated pirates in the Indian Ocean to secure sea lines of communication, interdicted WMD-related materials, and has engaged in the past in non-combat evacuation operations in places such as Lebanon, Nepal, and Yemen. India is one of the world’s largest troop contributors to UN peacekeeping operations. These efforts reinforce India’s image as a security provider.

India has gradually expanded its defense diplomacy with several countries in Asia-Pacific, enhancing possibilities for greater power projection with a benign image of its rise in power. This has included defense cooperation agreements, joint exercises, training, high-level visits, service-to-service talks, port visits, and so on. Defense diplomacy involves several activities that in the past were described as military cooperation or assistance. The Indian Navy is at the forefront of Indian defense diplomacy. India has also embraced defense multilateralism, which includes initiatives such as the MILAN biennial exercise involving several countries of the Indian Ocean region, the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), and the Malabar naval exercise. It has developed defense multilateral links by participating in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM-Plus).

The US was the first party to invite India to become a security provider in the Indian Ocean and beyond. India now conducts more exercises with the US than with any other country, and in doing so has developed an alignment of interest in maritime security and maintaining open international commons, including in the South China Sea. India and the US support “rules-based order and regional security architecture conducive to peace and prosperity” in the Indo-Pacific. Finding a common cause with Japan on maritime security, India has agreed to the latter’s participation in the Malabar naval exercise “on a regular basis.” Such exercises enhance interoperability and capacity to act together in missions such as disaster relief or humanitarian assistance. The U.S. Department of Defense in its new strategic guidance of 2012 mentions: “The United States is also investing in a long-term strategic partnership with India to support its ability to serve as a regional economic anchor and provider of security in the broader Indian Ocean region.” The US has offered sophisticated defense technologies to India, including aircraft carrier technology to enhance India’s power-projection capabilities.

India will continue to show greater concern over security issues in proximity to its frontier, rather than in distant areas such as the South China Sea. This is commensurate with its capacity and strategic significance. As one analyst concludes, “India has acquired the nucleus of a substantial [power projection] capability, but it remains limited in number and in terms of specific enablers.”[5] India fails in many measures in responding to requests made by some Southeast Asian nations to contribute to maritime security and assistance. There is hesitancy in India for joint patrols with the US in South China Sea. Does India aspire to build its inter-service expeditionary capability that will make it appear as an effective security provider in the Indian Ocean region? While the answer is “yes,” it is more likely that as India expands its economic, political, and strategic relations with East and Southeast Asia, it will contribute to peace and security beyond the Indian Ocean.

In 2003, India seriously considered sending its troops to participate in the stabilization of Iraq. The growing India-US military ties and India’s defense diplomacy with countries such as Japan, Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore will help India project power and contribute to extra-regional security. India’s decision to sign the logistic support agreement with the US will help boost their power projection capability. While India will choose its role in its national interest, it will contribute to peace and security under the UN and outside of it as it has done in the past with its growing power and rise to great power.

In short, while there remains presently ambiguity in India’s role as “a net security provider,” India’s rise to great power will slowly position the nation to contribute to public goods– be it stable balance of power in Asia, maritime security, or freedom of international commons in the Asia-Pacific.

Ajaya Kumar Das is a Researcher at the Guangdong Institute for International Strategies (GIIS), Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, P.R. China. He joined GIIS after a PhD from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The views expressed are his own and do not reflect the official policy or position of GIIS. He can be reached at ajayadas123@gmail.com.

[1] “PM to Heads of Indian Missions,” Press Information Bureau, Government of India, February 7, 2015, http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=115241.

[2] S. Jaishankar, India, the United States, and China, IISS-Fullerton Lecture, July 20, 2015, https://www.iiss.org/en/events/events/archive/2015-f463/july-636f/fullerton-lecture-jaishankar-f64e.

[3] See Ashley J. Tellis, “India as a Leading Power,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 4, 2016, http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/04/05/india-as-leading-power/iwf5.

[4] “India-United States Joint Statement on the visit of Secretary of Defense Carter to India April 10-13, 2016,” U.S. Department of Defense, April 12, 2016, http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/718589/india-united-states-joint-statement-on-the-visit-of-secretary-of-defense-carter.

[5] Shashank Joshi, “Indian Power Projection: Ambition, Arms and Influence,” Whitehall Papers 85:1(2015): 140.

[6] Joint Statement on India and Japan Vision 2025: Special Strategic and Global Partnership Working Together for Peace and Prosperity of the Indo-Pacific Region and the World, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, December 12, 2015, http://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/26176/Joint_Statement_on_India_and_Japan_Vision_2025_Special_Strategic_and_Global_Partnership_Working_Together_for_Peace_and_Prosperity_of_the_IndoPacific_R

Featured Image: BAY OF BENGAL (Sept. 7, 2007) – An F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to the Strike Fighter Squadron 102, left, and an F/A-18E Super Hornet from Strike Fighter Squadron 27, foreground, fly in formation with two Indian Navy Sea Harriers, bottom, and two Indian Air Force Jaguars, right, over Indian Navy aircraft carrier INS Viraat (R 22) during exercise Malabar 07-2. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jarod Hodge.

Asia-Pacific

Strategic Maritime Balancing in Sino-Indian Foreign Policy

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India’s Role in the Asia-Pacific Topic Week

By Ryan Kuhns

The notion that China and India have fought only one war with each other in their civilizations’ long histories has sometimes been used to preface or bookend conversations about Sino-Indian strategic rivalry. It would seem that this narrative would require a sort of continuous geopolitics, the consistent orientation of collective interests and power and their relationship with geography. In fact, the geopolitical facts of the past do not fully link up with the realities of the 21st century. Not only have the mountain passes and peaks of the Himalayas become zones for potential conflict, where in the past they served as natural buffers, but the shared space of the Indo-Pacific also links the interests and security concerns of present day India and China.

Despite the potential for friction, a perspective that is overly obsessed with the potential for strategic rivalry between India and China can obscure where their interests meet. It also fails to fully contend with the very real and powerful aspects of economic and political globalization, as well as Asian perspectives on how the current iteration of the global system should change in order to accommodate the rise of its most accomplished and promising states. This may be why security narratives that hone in on the potential for direct strategic rivalry in the Sino-Indian relationship are so often thwarted by rebuttals which simply point to India and China’s regional and international cooperation on infrastructure projects, trade, and in multi-lateral forums. In order to more fully understand potential or actual strategic rivalry dynamics between China and India, it may be necessary to widen one’s view to the regional and super-regional periphery, to India and China’s potential partners in the maritime realm. The maritime domain provides the most room for realistic maneuver between the two countries in that it eschews an overt continental buildup along their contested border while taking advantage of the Indo-Pacific’s political and economic complexity.

The potential for strategic maritime competition generally lies in maintaining the ability to carry out sea control / sea denial missions and the maintenance of a nuclear second strike capability. India and China both consider sea control to be a crucial element of their national security. China’s colonial experience and its wars with the Japanese Empire both highlighted the importance of a capable navy. India’s recent experiences with seaborne terrorism and its memory of American carrier diplomacy in its 1971 war with Pakistan have also served a similar purpose. Outside of their continental and near seas interests, both countries’ economies rely on the safe passage of goods and energy. India’s overseas trade contributes to 90 percent of its foreign trade by volume and around 70-77 percent of its trade value. 80 percent of India’s demand for oil is met by imports from overseas. Similarly, China’s economy relies heavily on imported energy, with over 85 percent of its oil demand met by overseas imports, two-thirds of which pass through the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and the Straits of Malacca. 90 percent of China’s trade volume and 65 percent of its foreign trade value come via the sea, much of which also passes through the IOR. For growing Asian economies with the means to project power, these figures have justified the expansion of naval capabilities and greater operational distances.

An Indian cargo ship at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai.
An Indian cargo ship at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai.

At the same time, India and China’s simultaneous pursuit of a more robust maritime presence has spooked each country in turn. As a more confident Chinese maritime strategy has driven an expansion of sorts into the IOR, some Indian analysts have become increasingly alarmed by the so-called “string of pearls” and/or Maritime Silk Road initiative, both of which may serve to further entrench Chinese interests in the IOR. While Chinese submarines had been sighted before in the IOR, many Indian defense experts were particularly worried by the appearance of a Chinese submarine at the Sri Lankan Colombo International Container Terminal (CICT) in 2014, which is a transit point for 48 percent of shipping bound for India. India has replied in turn by reemphasizing its desire to bolster its naval capabilities through indigenously produced, modern craft and through its own economic and geopolitical maneuvering. India is preparing to relax its cabotage laws in order to decrease its reliance on shipping from ports like the CICT. It is also working towards the construction of deep water ports of its own near major international shipping lanes. India has also expanded its cooperation with Japan and Vietnam. Japan and India plan to “deepen” their “bi-lateral defense relationship” and work together on infrastructure projects on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, northwest of the Strait of Malacca. India‘s growing cooperation with Vietnam has included a line of credit from India to Vietnam for Ocean Patrol Vessels, an Indian commitment to the training of 500 Vietnamese submariners, Indian support for Vietnam’s possible access to the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, and plans for the Indian construction of a satellite tracking station in Vietnam.

The expansion of the Sino-Indian action-reaction cycles to their respective strategic peripheries may be illustrative of what Chietigj Bajpaee refers to as a “nested security dilemma.” While there are certainly dangers to broadening the points of potential conflict between two powers, India and China’s moves to shore up their own economic and physical security through approaching potential partners in the region has also afforded the two powers a certain level of flexibility when it comes to strategic competition; providing opportunities for balancing each other with potential strategic competitors in an effort to sap the other’s efforts at expanding  their operational and strategic reach while maintaining the productive aspects of their bi-lateral relationship. The most important relationships to India and China in this regard may be with the United States and Pakistan respectively.

The PRC’s relationship with Pakistan goes back to shortly after the emergence of both nations. Pakistan has served as a crucial element of China’s effort to reduce India’s threat of revanchism. Pakistan also helped partially balance India’s close relationship with the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet split, and served as the diplomatic bridge to the United States, producing perhaps the most pivotal re-alignment of the Cold War. Today, Pakistan serves as a potential corridor for China’s efforts to circumvent its “Malacca dilemma.” It also looks as if Pakistan’s maritime capabilities will become increasingly important for augmenting China’s strategic interests in South Asia and the IOR. Last year’s agreement between China and Pakistan for eight Type 41 Yuan-class diesel-electric submarines, the largest of China’s arms deals to date, provides the means for Pakistan to complicate not only India’s ability to operate in Pakistan’s littorals, but may serve as the genesis of Pakistan’s future submarine-based nuclear deterrent.

Type 039B Yuan-class submarine during rollout at the Jiangnan Shipyard on Changxing Island.
Type 039B Yuan-class submarine during rollout at the Jiangnan Shipyard on Changxing Island.

US-India détente has been slow coming and cyclical in nature but the end of the Cold War moved things along. As China’s assertive posture in the South China Sea began to rile the United States, India’s position as a core partner in the US’s “Asia-Pacific Rebalance” has been highlighted by high level visits from the United States and grand pronouncements regarding the potential of US-Indian partnership. US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s efforts seem to have yielded an agreement “in principle” on the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement. The US ambassador to India has also publicly expressed the desire, on the part of the US, to supply India with American aircraft and defense technology, highlighting that there “is no other country in the world that we are supporting as an emerging global defense leader” and that “[n]ever [has the US] actively supported the indigenous development of an aircraft carrier program in another country.”

U.S Secretary of Defense Ash Carter meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 12 in New Dehli, India. Source: Zuma Press.
U.S Secretary of Defense Ash Carter meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 12, 2016, in New Dehli, India. Source: Zuma Press.

Even though the Chinese relationship with Pakistan appears, at least publicly, less ambivalent than burgeoning US-Indian ties, the Indian relationship with the United States could be extremely important for India as it attempts to build a navy that may cope with the enormous task of controlling the IOR while maintaining its commitment to continental defense. While the US may continue to push for direct Indian participation in meeting China’s increasingly assertive stance in the South China Sea, it is in India’s interest to build its capabilities for affecting influence in its regional seas first, and relieving and supporting the US in the IOR so that it may put pressure on China in the South and East China seas. Also, up until a certain point, this creates the conditions for India’s plausible deniability in China’s security woes with the United States and China’s possible subsequent difficulty in pulling its navy away from its immediate maritime periphery. China, through providing a great deal of military equipment to Pakistan and developing its submarine capabilities, thus attempts to complicate India’s regional maritime security calculations in such a way that it works to obstruct its larger regional and international goals.

While one can observe patterns, the true nature of these developing strategic maritime relationships never appears totally clear. While China professes itself as an “all-weather friend” to Pakistan, it has also been cautious about looking too close to its number one arms customer and India’s main rival. The United States, on the other hand, driven by the imperatives of its Global War on Terror and its legacy of defense cooperation with Islamabad, continues to sell military equipment and platforms to Pakistan. Of course, the US-China relations is more often defined by their mutual interest than by where they clash. Finally, India and China maintain meaningful and productive contacts. With regards to security issues, Beijing and New Delhi have institutionalized a “Maritime Affairs Dialogue”, are working towards a military hotline, and meet in multi-lateral forums with other major powers, such as Russia, to present unified visions on regional and global issues.

This lack of solid commitment to overt balancing does not reflect a level of uncertainty about each country’s respective national interests in regards to the strategic orientation of the other. It is in China and India’s best interests to not concretely and directly align themselves with Pakistan and the United States due to the fact that the actions of their allies could reduce their strategic flexibility. China has long been concerned with internal unrest in Pakistan and with how Pakistan’s issues with terror have affected both Chinese citizens in Pakistan and bled over into its own restive regions. Pakistan’s tense relationship with India also adds a level of unpredictability to the strategic situation in South Asia, a cauldron that China would do well to avoid if it wants to protect its maritime and continental assets. India’s approach to its growing relationship with the United States also exhibits some anxieties about becoming involved in the growing clashes between Beijing and Washington. As one of India’s leading intellectuals said in his analysis of the Modi boom in US-Indian relations, “Do we really think we will challenge the Chinese [in the South China Sea] with the Americans, when all that the Chinese have to do is take a little walk across our vast borders to make us feel vulnerable?”

While an ostensibly positive bilateral relationship seems to define Sino-Indian relations for now, undercurrents of competition remain and appear to have the potential to proliferate. Both their respective strategic maritime orientations and the nature of their relations with regional and international powers may lead to a point where the curtain on Sino-Indian strategic machinations is raised. The illusory aspects of a diplomatic relationship built on political theatre serve as poor mechanisms for deescalating real conflicts which may seriously threaten both of their interests. At the same time, overt strategic competition could fuel naval arms racing between the two powers in a way that could be wasteful, make clashes even more likely, and further complicate the delicate diplomatic architecture of a highly dynamic Asia. Only a cautious and healthy mutual respect for each other’s power potential and the possible disastrous outcomes of unchecked strategic competition may add some degree of certainty to Asian diplomacy in the 21st century. Simultaneously, unclear policies masquerading as caution could lead to uncertainty that shapes miscalculation in times of conflict. Currently, trends in Sino-Indian relations appear to be quite positive. Although, derivations from the strategic status quo in the Indo-Pacific can force recalculations.

Ryan Kuhns is a Research Associate at PAXsims and holds an MA from the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. His research interests include defense economics, strategy, and the social/political organization of war. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone.

Asia-Pacific

Diluting the Concentration of Regional Power Players in Maldives

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India’s Role in the Asia-Pacific Topic Week

By Major Ahmed Mujuthaba

The Maldives: an Asiatic trinket trickling down from the tip of southern India in the middle of the blue economy’s hub. Even though it is popular for its crystalline waters and sun bathed beaches, recently Maldives has been appearing on the minds and finds of security strategists. So why have strategists shifted their gaze to this tiny tourist destination all of a sudden?  Two reasons: India and China.

To learn more about the verities behind Chinese and Indian interests in Maldives, it is imperative to spare some ink on its geopolitics. Maldives is a marine resource-bound nation with its authoritative territories, when combined, consist of 98% sea. The 2% of land is comprised of approximately 1190 islands with a size of no more than 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) and elevating less than 1.5 meters (5 foot) above sea level. These islands are spread on the Indian Ocean from north to south for 863 kilometers (from latitudes 07° 06’ N to 00° 42’ S centered on longitude 73°E), conjoined into rings of islands known as atolls.

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A regional map indicating the location of Maldives.

Due to its vastly resourceful and untouched marine environment, the Maldives obtain most of its foreign revenue from selling its serene and scenic beauty through tourism. Maldives’ tourism is one of the most high-end tourist industries in the world. This industry takes a bountiful slice of 42% from the nation’s GDP and accounts for 60% of its foreign income receipts.

To cater to this growing tourist industry the Maldives has gone into private and/or foreign partnerships to develop holiday resorts on uninhabited islands. The unique system of one-resort one-island has been successfully fending for the population since its introduction in 1972. As the country imports most of the required essentials, successful sustenance of the tourism industry is crucial for the population.

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A tourist location at Kurumba, Maldives.

Notwithstanding this booming tourist industry, the Maldives remains a vulnerable nation in voluminous ways. Some of these vulnerabilities can be fanned down to a number of areas.

First and foremost is its economic dependence on tourism, which fluctuates wildly when the world economy slumps even an inch. Second is the country’s dependence on foreign imports, which stresses whenever diplomacy or economy strains. Third is the limited and strained basic services and facilities such as health, power and water, where the latter two have a cascading effect based on global oil prices.

Fourth is the lack of skilled human resources to meet the demands of growing industries in the country, which is compensated by an expatriate population accounting for over a fourth of the locals. Fifth is the constraint on security forces to prevent or counter any conventional aggression towards the country’s sovereignty.

Foreign aid and assistance is an important requisite for alleviating these vulnerabilities. Hence, a robust and charismatic foreign policy remains an essential tool for the development of Maldives.

India, being the largest and closest resourceful neighbor to the Maldives, has enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with the small island state for years. The highlight of Indian assistance was witnessed during the 1988 November 3rd incident, when mercenaries led by a Maldivian businessman attempted to take-over the government of President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in an armed coup. On the request of the president of Maldives, the government of India rushed its army paratroopers and naval units to subdue the mercenaries.

Indian commandos escort the captured leader of the attempted coup in 1988.
Indian commandos escort the captured leader of the attempted coup in 1988.

Other notable influxes of Indian assistance include the opening of the nation’s largest hospital in 1995, the gifting of a ‘Trinket’ class fast attack craft (FAC) in 2006, the gifting of a ‘Dhruv’ helicopter in 2010, the opening of the country’s first military hospital in 2012, and opening of the Maldives National University’s Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Studies (FHTS) building in 2014.

India’s footprint remains conspicuous in the Maldives in economic, diplomatic, and military aspects. Though this may be so, winds have not been always fair and seas neither calm between India and Maldives. In 2012, the government of Maldives prematurely scrapped an Indian investment made in the Maldives, which was also the largest foreign investment ever made in the island nation, amounting to USD $511 million.

This move demonstrated to New Delhi that Maldives was capable of making unilateral stances in a sovereign manner, whether it may or may not harm Indian interests. In the following year, the new government led by the current president, Mr. Yameen A. Gayoom initiated mechanisms to pacify the strained relations between the two nations.

Upon taking office, President Yameen made his first state visit to India in 2014, signifying the importance of maintaining close ties with India. But it was the subsequent visits he made to China that took away the gaze of the foreign media. President Yameen made three official visits to China in 2014. In a reciprocal move, the Chinese president Xi Jinping made history in September 2014 by being the first Chinese president to visit Maldives. These interactions are encouraging to strategists desirous in their quest to find China’s next possible ‘pearl.’

It is a well-known fact that China has been modernizing and expanding its navy (PLAN) at a rapid pace, aiming to shift its traditional territorial focus more towards the sea. The PLAN’s ambitious ventures into the Indian Ocean is not a new topic in such forums. China has been expanding its influence in the Indo-Pacific region, spanning from the East China Sea through the South China Sea, into the Indian Ocean to Djibouti. 

Even though no major maritime infrastructure has been built in the Maldives by China to qualify it as a ‘pearl’ strategists think otherwise. It is believed the Chinese may actually use the backdrop of soft-power measures to gain leverage for potential military intent in the future.

Is this true? Could the Chinese have or even benefit from a naval presence in Maldives? And will the government of Maldives embrace Chinese military presence in the country?

To rectify the question of whether China could use its soft-power on Maldives to expand into the Indian Ocean may be a complex one to untangle. Theoretically speaking, soft-power is the mechanism employed by most developed and even developing nations to project their power over other nations. This may include, but is not limited to, financial loans, aid grants, and even expansion of cultural ties through interactions at varying levels.

Soft-power can be used as a pretext in diplomacy by providing so much aid to the receiver, that when the donor asks for a favor, the receiver may not have much of a bargaining capability. The whole idea is to increase the dependency of as many recipient nations as possible towards the donor state. In the developing world this tactic is not only employed by China, but India is also known to engage in soft-power diplomacy.

Until recently, India has accounted for most of Maldives’ foreign grants, but as of 2014 it was taken over by China. In 2015, the Chinese started building a bridge in Maldives, between the capital Male’ and the airport island of Hulhule. The cost of the bridge is estimated at USD $300 million. This and many more development projects are on the upswing in the Maldives through Chinese aid. Are all these soft-power measures unto Maldives because of a strategic value for China?

Unfolding the drawing board of the ‘String of Pearls’, the Chinese already have developed ports in Sitwe, Chittagong, Hambantota, and in Gwadar while a port in Djibouti is also being developed. Does building a port in Maldives have significance for China?

Looking into this picture through a strategic scope, the Maldives remains in the security grid of India, the latter being the net security provider for the region. Any conventional threat towards India from the soil of Maldives will take moments for Indian forces to respond and neutralize.

Maldives also remains under the surveillance grid of India, making any potential act of aggression from within the Maldives a challenge. The two countries have strong military ties resulting in a number of interactions at multiple levels. These includes security cooperation agreements, joint military exercises, and joint military operations.

The Chinese have already invested in a deep-sea port in the proximity of Maldives, which is the port in Hambantota. Strategists believe this port may be used as a naval base by the PLAN in the future. Investing in another port a few hundred miles apart may not serve as a feasible option for China. Furthermore, Chinese officials have also downplayed any plans to establish a naval base in Maldives.

Maldives President Abdullah Yameen meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Maldives President Yameen meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in September 2014.

Taking all this into account, one may not be wise to test India’s tolerance if either Sri Lanka or Maldives decides to permanently provide bases for PLAN. Even if a port is built in Maldives by China, the possibility is that it would be utilised as an operation turn-around (OTR) base by the PLAN.

Finally, would the Maldives ally with an extra-regional power against India? To deliberate on this question, President Yameen, during his address on the Armed Forces Day celebrations in 2014, emphasized his averseness to any extra-regional military foothold in the Indian Ocean region.

Regardless of the statement, in 2015 September, a huge media furor broke out when Maldives revised its constitution with regards to foreign land acquisition. Media disregarded the fact that one of the revised articles, article 302, states that land can only be acquired for investments over a billion dollars, which can be translated as high-end economic investments. Despite this, Maldives was accused by foreign media of paving the way for the Chinese military.

Eventually, Maldives attempted to calm the fears of its neighbors by exchanging diplomatic visits in the process, clearly expressing that Maldives had no intention of destabilizing the region. If one actually looks at the history of Maldives, it did not fare too well with the British after a base in the southern atoll of Addu was provided to RAF in 1941. The eventual independence of Maldives was centered on the agreed evacuation of this RAF base. It would be incongruous for Maldives to get tangled in such a mess again.

Even though the Chinese have embarked on a renewed aggressive aid mechanism in the Maldives, it is still unlikely to hinder Indian footprints in the Maldives, definitely not in the near future. Indian military, social, and economic engagements in Maldives will still out-weigh any extra-regional power for years to come.

As a sovereign state, the Maldives has every right to pursue economic opportunities and other interests from regional or extra-regional donors and partners. As the competition over the control of the Indian Ocean intensifies, a daunting task remains for the leadership of Maldives and its diplomats to responsibly balance the power plays of India and China. The existing rhetoric of an ‘Indophobic’ Maldives does not seem to bear any substantive overt evidence. Rather, Maldives is seen to pursue a path of favoring none over the other.

Major Ahmed Mujuthaba is a career Coast Guard officer in the Maldives National Defence Force. He has served as the Operations Officer of Coast Guard and as the Desk Officer for India at the Ministry of Defence and National Security. He is specialized in salvage diving from the PLAN Submarine Academy, Qingdao and is also a graduate of the Indian Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. You can follow him on Twitter: @mujuthaba.

The views and opinions expressed are his own and do not reflect those of the Maldives National Defence Force or the Government of Maldives.

Featured Image: Malé, the capital of the Maldives.